Being Ill is so Frustrating (by sarah)
So I have a shonky immune system - I tend to pick up chest infections and stuff that makes others ill for a few days can take me out for weeks. This hasn't been so bad since finding out I can't eat gluten but it is still there.
And it is incredibly frustrating... so last the week before last I was a little run down, I got a cyst and a sore throat, everyone else got a sore throat and a slight cough. They got better within a couple of days. The stupid cyst got worse and then popped (which was a relief) and I was just left feeling a little chesty but that was it.
I thought I was basically better, but only just, so I went to my rehearsal for the acting job I love. Now I could have not gone to it and done a rehearsal plus shift on Saturday but that's a long day and I have to avoid stupid long days due to the head injury etc... and I thought I was better so I went to the rehearsal which was outside in the rain. Before the session was even over I started to feel stuffy headed and to cough, sneeze etc...
Roll on yesterday where I spent the day curled up coughing my lungs up, with ear ache, nausea and no to little voice. I had a slight temperature, I've felt worse - in the past when I have pushed myself whilst feeling like this I have ended up sick for months and ended up with full blown pneumonia and in hospital on oxygen etc... I never want that to happen again so I will confess I am a bit more of a scaredycat/I need to rest person these days. Plus I don't really think it's fair to infect others and part of the problem I have is that people go out when they are sick and infect me with my dodgy immunity!
Our cultures entire work ethic is just power through! Dose yourself up and get on with it - but that is incredibly damaging to everybody and down right dangerous for those with low immunity.
But... but... I also can't stand letting people down and so yesterday morning having slept through the school run and being barely able to stay upright I was still trying to work out how to work. I had a workshop booked for the evening. Then I sneezed and it was EXPLOSIVE and I thought - damn I must be infectious I can't go and infect people, I'm a bio hazard and I had to contact people and say I couldn't run the workshop... and this hurt - it hurt like hell. I was letting people down.
At the same time I'm trying to think on this as damage limitation - if I don't cancel one or two things now then I might well be wiped out until after Christmas and that would mean letting down a hell of a lot more people.
This morning my temperature has broken and I managed breakfast properly, but I am coughing and snotting still and the coughing has pinged something in my back and I think if I go and try and run about in a wet field for a few hours I will be very ill... so I have just texted to cancel the acting shift for tomorrow - the shift that was the whole point of going for the Wednesday rehearsal :'(
I really really wanted to do this shift and not just from the not wanting to let people down point of view - I love this work, I love the acting and it's opening night and it's the night that people are coming to see me and now I wont be there and I'll miss all the professional photographs and so on.
But if I don't take the time off now I risk not being able to do any of the run - but I've just canceled my first shift!!! How unreliable does that make me? 🙁
I've said that if I am suddenly a lot better I will come in still but at the moment I still can't breath properly. I am hoping that I'll be better for Sunday when I'm running a craft workshop (inside) - kind of trying for damage limitation here - but I feel pretty crap emotionally as well as physically now.
I feel like a failure when I can't do things.
Day 2 of being curled up in my nest.
Fri 29th Sep 2017 8:13 am 
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