About 6 weeks ago, I managed to catch a really nasty cold/flu type thing. For the better part of a week, I literally slept 18 hours a day, and the mere effort of taking a shower and blow drying my hair was overwhelming. It was miserable, and recovery was slow, but eventually I started feeling like a normal person again.
Except for that whole lingering cough and congestion thing. I’ve been dealing with that ever since. The coughing is severe enough that I wheeze when walking up a flight of stairs. When ever I laugh, particularly when its spontaneous, I end up devolving into a coughing fit. I’ve gone through 2 big bottles of Robitussin to try and control the coughing, to no avail. After last night, though, when I was awake from 3am to 7am coughing my lungs up, and keeping BF awake as well, I finally broke down and worked from home today so that I could schedule an Doctor’s appointment.
I’ve been reluctant to do anything about the persistent cough, despite continual urging from my mother and grandmother, for a couple reasons that border on totally stupid. First, I don’t like taking time off to do boring and/or mundane things. I get 4 weeks of sick/personal/vacation time a year, plus I’ve got a week from last year that I didn’t use and carried over. And, while i can think of a few occasions to take time off, vacation time generally means spending a lot of money, and that is something I am trying not to do right now. So, why the reluctance to use a day? Stubbornness, really. I just don’t like to waste my time. The other thing that’s been stupidly holding me back from seeing a doctor is, well, the fact that the co-pay is $20, plus I knew there would be another $20 in medicine costs. I know, I know – I dropped $50 on dinner the other night, $40 to make myself feel better is just a drop in the bucket. I’ve got to get over this particular impulse, and just do what is right for my health and my sanity, despite the costs.
Now, the incalculable costs of being sick for 6 + weeks: I haven’t been able to keep up my gym routine, and I can feel all the hard-won progress I made on that front slipping away. I’ve been generally exhausted, and its all I can do most days to go to work and do the bare minimum. I’m not performing as well as I can, and I’m also not making much progress on any of the other tasks and goals I have for myself. General tiredness is also making me irritable and less than wonderful to be around – I’ve spent a lot of time going out and trying to have fun and really just being miserable.
My Doctor told me that the symptoms can last easily for 3-4 months if left untreated, but you pay the price in being miserable and unhappy all that time. She told me I was her record this winter, for waiting 6 whole weeks to come it. Its not a honor I think I should ever aspire to again. The costs of not treating a lingering illness are incomparable.
