On being sick

So, Jude has passed on the "Cold of Death" to Kevin and I. As I sit here in bed during nap time attempting to make up for my second sleepless night, I'm trying to decide which is worse: A 24 hour flu or the common cold.

I had the flu over Christmas. It was horrible. I basically was useless and in bed the whole time. Kevin was completely on his own and I really didn't see the kids for a whole day. If you're a mother of small children, you literally cannot do your job. But it is short. Sure, that time is spent reeling from fever and nausea, punctuated by periods of ralphing, but you're generally only going to lose one night's sleep.

With a cold, however, you never feel completely incapacitated. Just crumby for a day or two, then pretty miserable for a few days, then kinda crumby again for a few days. Then, there's the first night you can't sleep because your throat is so sore and swollen you can barely breathe. And the second night you can't sleep because your face is so congested it feels like a hippo is sitting on it. And when you do dose off you wake shortly because your tongue has turned into cardboard. So then you attempt to sleep sitting up to drain your sinuses...but who can sleep sitting up? And then there's the third night that you spend hacking and sputtering all night and end up moving to the couch so you don't wake the whole house up. So, a week of feeling sick, three nights with no sleep, but an ability to more or less complete your daily functions. Sure, you walk around in a fog, the TV's on a lot, and you feed the kids candy for lunch, but you're there. They may laugh at you when your croak out their bedtime song, and it's a miracle you're still standing at the end of the day, but it's no flu.

What do you think? Which is worse: Quick and dirty or long and drawn out?- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone