I went to work on Thursday knowing I wasn’t feeling great. At that time it was just a runny nose, cough, and sore throat. I took some cold meds and had cough drops. It got me through the night.
When I woke up Friday, I felt like I’d been run over. I had pain in my back, my throat felt like I swallowed razor blades, I had pain over my eyes, and my cough was deep and constant.
I didn’t want to call in, but I had to. I basically spent the day on the couch in and out of sleep. I felt a little better yesterday, but again, I dozed off and on throughout the day. Rest is best, right?
This morning, my head is stuffy, I’m still coughing, and I feel like I could snooze some more. I will probably have to go back to work on Monday whether I like it or not. I need what’s left in my PTO bank for my colonoscopy coming up and Andrew’s surgery.
I hate being sick. My wife hates it, too. I think it’s because I annoy her. You know what I mean? All guys are babies when we are sick. I am pretty much worthless.
I must be feeling a little better, though. I did load the dishwasher and threw some clothes in the washer. That’s a start.
I debated whether or not to write about this. Then I realized that I’ve already shared quite a bit of personal stuff with you already, so what’s one more thing?
As I stated in my previous blog, I am home recovering from a minor surgical procedure (Somewhere hidden in this blog is a hint as to what procedure). I was discharged a few hours after it was finished and told to go home and rest. Specifically, lay in bed for 48-72 hours and keep activity to a minimum.
One of the hardest parts of the discharge is no heavy lifting. When I asked the doc to define heavy lifting, he said no more than 15 pounds. Well, AJ is 17 pounds, so I can’t even lift him up! Because of this, Sam has been running ragged all week!
I usually help with dishes and laundry, but I haven’t been able to help with anything! It’s driving me nuts! I just want to be up and moving. I want to help. Sam keeps yelling at me to get back to bed. She knows that if I overdue it, she’ll be rushing me to ER or something. Lol.
I am up about every 20 minutes. The reason is that I have to ice the area for 20 minutes, then remove the ice for 20 minutes, then ice it again for 20 minutes. It’s pretty crazy. This is supposed to be keeping the swelling down.
Sam bought a couple ice packs for me and also a couple bags of frozen peas. I guess these work well as ice packs….who knew?! So every 20 minutes, I get up and grab an ice pack or frozen peas and return to my bed.
It’s absolutely killing me that I can’t pick up the kids! I love holding AJ and walking around the house singing to him. I love picking up Ella and rough housing with her. She loves when I throw her on our bed. It will be a week or so before I can so either. It also means I will need help when Sam goes back to work, as I can’t lift either to get them into their beds.
Ella knows that daddy has a boo boo and has to stay in bed. She comes over to the bedroom doorway and says, “Hi daddy. What doing?”. That makes me smile. I tell her I’m looking at my beautiful little girl and she says, “Ok” and goes back out to the living room. Sometimes I can coax her into coming up to the edge of the bed and giving me a kiss before she walks away.
I have a portable DVD player that I use for my classes which I felt might be on the verge of dying. It may have. I set it up to watch a DVD and it won’t play.
We have a DVD player and a TV on the dresser in our room, but we haven’t used it in forever. I hunted down some batteries for the remotes, and got it working. So while Sam was off doing something for work, I sat at watched a few shows in preparation for my next pick for the TV Show Draft.
Let me say, Sam has been absolutely amazing. She has been on the go since I’ve been home. It is difficult enough to juggle the needs of two little ones, and then you factor in that her big, dumb husband is laid up in bed needing her every once in a while. She has treated me like a king (bringing me food, drink, and ice) and also like a peasant – yelling at me to get back in bed when I am doing something I’m not supposed to.
She actually said to me last night that I’m doing better than she had expected. I asked her what she meant. She reminded me of just how awful I am when I get sick. If I have a “man cold” or the flu, well, I’m kind of unbearable. Everything hurts. I get weak and am – a big baby!
She really anticipated me moaning and groaning in bed and acting like a baby after this. I guess I have been tolerable. Is there pain? Yes. Is there swelling? Yes. Is it sometimes difficult to walk? Yes. Is using the bathroom a challenge? YES! But, I’m getting through it.
By Saturday or Sunday, I should be almost 100%. I should have little pain and be able to walk around fine. I will be able to drive and by Tuesday, I’ll be back to work. I will still have to be careful with how much I lift, which stinks, but it won’t be long and I’ll be throwing Ella on the bed again.
As I lay here, knowing that I am a few breaths away from death … I have chosen to spend my last few moments writing a blog. Yes, the “man cold” will be the death of me.
It all started so simply – a runny nose. Then, on the way to work on Sunday, the onset of some severe sinus pressure, headache, and general aches, made it very difficult to make it through the night. After an entire 10 hours of blowing my nose, I was set to star in the next installment of Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer! The hour drive home was difficult, not only because I was tired, but because every single bump or pothole I hit only amplified the aches and pains I was already feeling.
When my alarm went off for work on Monday, I could barely move. I felt like I could hardly move. I decided it was best to stay home and try to sleep it off. I think I ended up sleeping a total of 30 hours! I did feel better on Tuesday and attempted to go to work. I was lucky that I didn’t have patients to run, and I was able to sit and score sleep studies. Despite the Day-Quill, by 5:00 a.m. I was starting to feel worse. I left work a little early and came home.
Sleep. That’s all I wanted today. I was in bed by 6:30 a.m., but I just couldn’t fall asleep. Between coughing sneezing, feeling hot, feeling cold, and constantly blowing my nose, I was up more than I slept. I know that I was finally able to get some sleep, because I remember dreaming. It just wasn’t enough…so I am home again.
My wife says I gave it to her, because she started feeling bad Monday night. Like most women, she believes all men exaggerate the symptoms of a cold. She struggled through her night at work, while I was home. She called to check on me a few times, and also told kept me up to date on how she felt, which got progressively worse as the night went on. She may deny this in the future, but I am positive she stated during one phone call, “I will never make fun of you when you are sick again.”
Is the “man cold” or “man flu” real?
I found a blog from Dr. Robert Shmerling, a Harvard doctor that says that the “man cold” is real! According to one study, men and women experience illnesses differently. Some of the things found in the study:
Influenza vaccination tends to cause more local (skin) and systemic (bodywide) reactions and better antibody response in women. Testosterone may play a role, as men with the highest levels tended to have a lower antibody response. A better antibody response may lessen the severity of flu, so it’s possible that vaccinated men get more severe symptoms than women because they don’t respond to vaccination as well.
In test tube studies of nasal cells infected with influenza, exposure to the female hormone estradiol reduced the immune response when the cells came from women, but not in cells from men. Treatment with antiestrogen drugs reduces this effect. Since flu symptoms are in large part due to the body’s immune reaction, a lessened immune response in women may translate to milder symptoms.
In at least one study reviewing six years of data, men were hospitalized with the flu more often than women. Another reported more deaths among men than women due to flu.
A survey by a popular magazine found that men reported taking longer to recover from flu-like illnesses than women (three days vs. 1.5 days)
The article says that “taken together, these findings suggest that there may be more to “man flu” than just men exaggerating their symptoms or unnecessarily behaving helplessly.”
I am hoping that another night of sleep will allow me to feel well enough to go on our mini-vacation to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary this weekend! Now, if you will excuse me, I am taking a shot of Ny-Quil, grabbing my pillow, and going to try to sleep.
Oh, and ladies … try not to be so hard on your man next time he feels under the weather.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 