So this Christmas, 2012, was, without a doubt, the worst Christmas ever!
My son Pelle got the flu earlier that week, and we kept him home from school, I took care of him and made him comfortable, he was running a fever, and spent a lot of time lying on the couch, watching old Transformers episodes. (I own all the oldskool episodes on dvd)
For me, it started out on Friday the 21st of December... I started feeling unwell in the morning, I had a customer in my office at 9 o'clock, and felt really bad, so after she was gone, I went home immediately, and hit the sack. Had a company Christmas dinner and party, later that afternoon and evening. I woke up, took some Panadol Liquid Caps 400 mg (my favorite pain-killer) and went to the dinner. I survived that, barely.
The next morning I had to get up at 5 AM to go to work, felt unwell again, took pain-killers and went to work. More pain-killers kept me up and running, slowly. Cold shivers, weak knees, muscle aches, light fever. I knew I had the flu. For real.
Called in sick on sunday, was running a fever, stayed in bed all day, sweating like a pig. I thought I was doing better. By the time it was monday I felt the worst was over.
That's when my wife Francis got hit with the flu. In a big way, she went from smiling and cooking dinner, to out on the couch, unable to move, running a fever, in a matter of hours. That was the day of Christmas Eve, so the two of us were down and out, my son Pelle was recovering, but still not completely well. Just our daughter Katja didn't seem to be bothered by the flu.
And there is no cure, sure, you can drink some extra orange juice for Vitamine C, take some extra multivitamin tablets, drink some hot tea, for your throat, etc. But it's a virus, there is no cure, you just have to let your body deal with that virus, kick in that fever, boost up that body temperature so the virus gets killed.
Now it's thursday, Christmas is over, we spent it in our living room, on the couch, in bed, coughing, blowing our noses, drinking tea, and sleeping. No great dinners, no festivities, drinking, laughing, or fun times. Yes, worst Christmas ever.
And it's not over yet, I thought I was over it, but I'm running a fever again, coughing like a madman, blood coming out of my right nostril constantly. It's not a nice sight, I can assure you. And my daughter Katja is now in her bed, running a fever, hit by the flu.
There is a point of positivity in all of this: it is a reminder of how fragile, and precious, good health is. As a family, we really pride ourselves in eating, drinking, training and living in a very consious way, to maximize our health and energy, it can all be challenged by a virus like the flu. We eat mostly organic, I follow the Paleo diet, Francis and me are very fanatic gym rats, so I'm pretty sure that our bodies are well-prepared for... anything, basically. Of course it's a virus, highly contagious, so there's not a thing you can do about it, but still, it's irritating that it can hit you so hard.
I did watch some great reruns of Inspector Frost every night, I love those old britisch detective series, like Morse for example. Already watched every episode a dozen times, but like Morse, Seinfeld or oldskool Transformers, they will always remain "watchable". So those were the highlights on my Christmas 2012: a grumpy old inspector called Jack Frost. Ah well...
I'm so glad when we're all back to normal health again... I hope you díd have a great Christmas!
