Ah, the lyrics from Cheers. A great theme song for the bar show, and one of my favourites. I’ve been thinking about the lyric, “Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot”. I don’t need somewhere to go, and I don’t want to “get away”, I just need to take a break this month.

I was excited for NaNoWriMo, and I’ll still do it, it just won’t be THIS month apparently. Just as the month started, Jacob and I both got sick, although in different ways. J is fighting almost constant vertigo, so focusing isn’t really working for him, and he’s missed two weeks of school straight. Not a great situation, and we’re on waiting lists for appointments to see a new pediatrician, etc. We’ve already seen neurology with no luck. Poor little cub.

For me, the issue is simple cold or flu. I use a sleep apnea machine (BIPAP) and one of the general benefits of it is that with the hydrated air that comes from it, I skip most colds or they’re limited to short bursts. But then when I do get sick? It is enough to bypass the benefits of the machine and I tend to be down for 2-4 weeks. Not constantly ill during that time, but pre-pandemic, I had it every other year or so. J would go back to school in September and by week 2, I was sick. It would generally last part of a week, mostly headcold and coughing, and then I would seem to get better. A week of residual symptoms and then I’d get the second wave of it that would take me down. Coughing, wheezing, choking, sneezing, blah blah blah stuff. It would last a few days, with or without a fever, and then, it would dissipate.

Except I’d have a residual cough for another 6-8 weeks. I would go to the doctor about the persistent cough and they’d say after week 3 or so, “Yep, could last 6-8w”, tell me to take antihistamines (most decongestants are not recommended with my other drugs), and I’d annoy everyone around me for another month.

Through the pandemic, I skipped that experience. We weren’t going anywhere, so I avoided most colds or flus. I had one bout, as I recall, but nothing lingering. Then I got COVID in August which wiped me out for almost 2 weeks.

Going into September, I managed to get through most of it, although a couple of bad days of dizziness here and there, some headaches, etc. All good in total.

October was easy at first, and then another day or two here and there, and then bam, the cold hit two weeks ago. Just as we were about to start NaNoWriMo along with some other To Do list items I was hoping to knock off. I’ve been fighting it on and off for the last 2.5 weeks, and I’m still dealing with some congestion and residual cough. Plus a couple of times a day, I’ll get a hot flash or stand up too fast resulting in dizziness.

I’m working from home, so I can mute myself if I start coughing too much, but next week I’ll be in the office most of the week.

At home? I’ve kept up with some photo gallery work, although most of it is pre-programmed ahead almost a month. The rest of my priorities? Well, that’s a different story.

Normally, I would try to push through. Keep plugging away like my life depended on it. I wouldn’t want to feel like I wasn’t doing my “job” of pushing on some levers. Maybe because I’m thinking ahead to retirement, where I know I won’t have a schedule demanding my immediate attention to projects, I’ve been putting them off. I did what needed to be done now…put the cover on the gazebo, got most of the backyard ready for winter. Swapped tires on the car for winter ones. And I’ll clean up the garage this weekend so I can get the car back in.

But I took my foot off the gas on the rest of it. Just to “be”. Without beating myself up about it. I’m getting to the “maybe I’m slowing down a little longer than I should” stage, so I’ll get back to some of it next week. And J and I have already talked about doing NaNoWriMo perhaps a few weeks later this year. We already have the shirts. 🙂

Soon, we hope, we’ll both be back to full strength.