The Covid Chronicles

Or "One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Hello my loveliest of lovelies. As the sun beams its warmth and health giving rays into my sunroom today, I beat back the fatigue of my Covid-induced malaise, to share with you a few incoherent thoughts on what it is to be forced to stop.

Both Luca and I have Covid (or is it ‘The Covid’?). Yes - I fear I was a bit laissez faire when he tested positive last weekend. I should have done the responsible mother thing: kicked him (whilst wearing a hazmat suit) into his room, wedged a chair under the door knob and sent food from the kitchen by carrier pigeon. But I didn’t. We masked up for sure and maintained all the basic hygeine protocols, but clearly it wasn’t enough - and by Tuesday I was riddled with the spicy flu too.

This round of Covid has been different to the first time I was struck down in 2022. First and foremost, the mortal terror that was served up as the obligatory side dish to Covid in the early days, has not been there (hence my more casual approach to Luca coming down with it), but also - in 2022 I was still in fulltime employment, and so back then as I went down for the count, my sick leave kicked in and I just checked out.

This time it’s personal

Not so this time. This 2024 round of Covid has come with a whole different set of circumstances. Running (building) my own business means no safety net. Thankfully I had no physical workshops to run, and have been able to manage what few obligations I did have without much fallout, but what I have had to tackle this time (that didn’t present last time as problematic) was not just the physical symptoms, but the mental and emotional symptoms.

The array of physical symptoms—aches, pains, cough, blocked nose, chills, shivers—was like ticking off items on a checklist. Dealing with them felt akin to when a restaurant serves all your ordered share plates at once, leaving no space or time for a well paced, leisurely consumption. No, no, no - they just bring them out one after the other, piling them up - forcing you to remove glasses, cutlery, phones, decoratively placed candles, condiments - until the table is just overflowing with everything you ordered - all served up at once. yeah - that’s kind of how my Covid symptoms were served up to me this week.

But in addition to all of the above - 2024 Covid brought with it emotional baggage. Lack of creative and motivational mojo, and guilt at not having the energy to even want to bother wanting to do anything. Enter - the long dark night of the entrepreneurial soul.

I know I’m not the only one that suffers the blaghs, the blues and bummed out’s when laid up with a lurgy, but this time (in order to offset some of the discomfort it is causing me this week), I opted to seek solace in the research.

Perennially curious being that I am, I sniffed out the findings of clever peeps with multiple letters after their names who have (reassuringly for me) found out some pretty cool stuff about why we feel so shit (on so many levels) when we are sick.

And for you my lovelies - if any of you ever feel the associated guilt of the ‘Lurgy Languish’ (knowing you’re sick, but not so sick that you can’t self-flagellate about the fact that you could be/should be doing something work related but just can’t be f**ked) - then maybe my little deep dive into ‘Sickness Behaviours’ - just might buoy your spirits.

And it’s not just Covid

Although for the most part, we’re happy for the heat of summer to be abating; relief finally from those endless sweaty sleepless nights. However the cooler months also bring bugs - and it’s not just Covid we can fall prey to.

Whether it’s the Spicy flu, the boring old regular flu, the (ugh soooooo common) cold, a tummy bug or strep throat, when we are unwell, our bodies kick into defense mode, led by a group of proteins called cytokines. These proteins not only combat invaders like viruses or bacteria but also communicate with our brains. They send signals like, "Hey, there's a fight happening here, let's conserve energy and focus on healing."

Our brains respond by triggering what scientists call "sickness behaviors." These are feelings of being flat, depressed, and unmotivated. Let that sink in - it’s deliberate. It's our bodies saying, “Shut that shit down over-achiever and chill the f**k out, while we do what we need to do!”

In fact - these cytokines have been found to promote these feelings of malaise and ‘meh’ even when introduced artificially into bodies without pathogens - check out more info on that study here, from Julie Lasselin: researcher in psychoneuroimmunology and the really uber-sciencey cytokine stuff here.

“I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worthwhile.” George Bernard Shaw

In super nerdy Nathy non-sciencey speak I look at it this way - it’s almost like cytokines are the biological protein form of your mum, when you were little, and she would make you stay in bed when you were sick and not allow you to go outside and play. It’s all part of your body’s plan to help you get better faster. (it doesn’t mean you’re happy about it, but you know deep down it’s what you need).

So my lovelies - I hope you manage to have a ‘lurgy-less’ winter this year, but if you do slip under the spell of a little bug - don’t fight it. Apparently there are forces far greater at play giving you full permission (no - insisting even) to not soldier on with Codral, but to snuggle in with your favourite streaming service and some warm chicken soup, and to rest assured - that just like last night’s curry - this too shall pass.

Mwah! Nathy