Manflu!
I went about three years without catching a cold thanks to old mate Covid, but the deadly man-flu rhinovirus variant caught up with me this week, deep-sizing all my plans to write heaps of books and max out all of my compound lifts.
Instead, I’m coughing, spluttering, and shivering up a storm. It’s bad enough that I’m thinking about another read-through of The Stand, although in the extremes of man-flu delirium yesterday, I did binge a couple of episodes of the worst TV show I’ve ever seen. I-land on Netflix. It’s so bad, it’s good—great even—and just the ticket for wallowing in your own mucus and misery.
I have a toddler in childcare, we are currently sitting at 6 illnesses for the year 3 of which were RSV/gastro... winter is gonna be a blast!
The worst part about getting a cold when you haven't been sick for years is that it hits you so much harder than the intensity of the virus warrants. Back in the good old days of working in an office full time when you got hit by the latest cold that someone got from their kid at the germ factory you'd have a day in bed feeling sorry for yourself and then a second day in bed to recover from feeling sorry for yourself and then you'd be on the mend.
I got a cold for the first time in 5 years and it knocked me on my arse. I complained to my BFF that it was outrageous that I, previously immune to ManFlu(tm) by dint of my XX chromosomes, appeared to have acquired a bout of ManFlu(tm) as my first illness since 2019, and I would very much like to speak to its manager about it. It was so bad I spent 3 days testing myself for COVID just to be sure I'd not misdiagnosed myself.
As I am also yet to experience COVID I'm genuinely worried what that would do to me if I have the misfortune of acquiring it if the humble common cold pwned me this badly.