breathe without you...

Ironically, given I have a chronic, incurable medical condition, I’m not very good at being ill. Hmm. Actually, perhaps that’s entirely unsurprising. After all, I doubt that there are many people who become fonder of hospitals the more time they spend in them.

I have a cold. I don’t think that I’m one of those guys who makes a whole song and dance about their terrible “man flu”, but I definitely don’t like being ill and I try my best to let it interfere with my life as little as possible. I think the only sick days I have ever had were 1 day when I had campylobacter and was delirious with a fever and stomach cramps, and I had to have a few days off after my lumbar puncture when the altered pressure in my central nervous system meant I couldn’t stand up for more than about half an hour without getting pounding headaches and breaking into a cold sweat. So yes, this does mean that I’m one of those people who turns up to work and coughs and splutters my way through a day. Yes, as someone with a compromised immune system myself, I could perhaps be a little more considerate… but the plain truth of the matter is that, unless I feel really unwell, I’m going to come to work. I don’t do duvet days.

With this particular cold – which developed nicely into a case of viral bronchitis – I sounded terrible, but always felt basically okay. 85% of normal, maybe – so I just tried to carry on with my life as normal. Sadly for me, this meant that I could work, but once it descended into my lungs and took up residence, exercise is out of the question. I did my last run 12 full days ago and even had to stop cycling to and from work when I started wheezing on the way home a week ago. I don’t particularly feel like exercising at the moment, but as someone who has run over 1000 miles this year and goes out 5 times a week, this is proving to be very difficult. I’ve started cursing the runners I see out on the streets under my breath. The bastards… what a bloody cheek that they’re out enjoying something I want to be doing but currently can’t. I keep setting myself little targets: I’ll start cycling to work again on Wednesday and will maybe do a little jog when I get home… but so far, my lungs just haven’t cleared up enough to make that possible (at one point this week, my wife woke me up at about 3am to rub Vicks onto my chest. It’s a lovely gesture, to be sure, but I think my coughing in my sleep was starting to fray her nerves). I think I’m going a bit crazy. I’m aiming for parkrun this week (and will be there, come hell or high water, even if I have to walk), but I’ll reluctantly have to play it by ear. Annoyingly, I’ve got a half marathon booked on Sunday next week… at this rate, even if my lungs clear up, I’m not sure it would be a very good idea. Dangnabbit. I hate being sensible.

Mind you. That being said, it’s also sort of nice to have all this time on my hands. It’s amazing how much earlier I’m getting home and how I can actually just sit down and watch telly or something like a normal person. It’s weird.

Naturally, I’ve put this time to excellent use by starting to play Skyrim again. I’m trying to make my character run everywhere.

If I can’t flog myself, I don’t really know what else to do.

Oh, and you know that thing where you cough so hard you rupture something in your ribcage and it makes coughing even more miserable?  Yeah.  That.  Good times.