Feed A Cold, Starve A Fever, but what the heck are you supposed to do when you have both?!

Forever people have said, “Feed a cold, starve a fever.”  So all I want to know is what the heck you are supposed to do when you have both?!

Being sick is the pits! And according to the news there are a whole bunch of people painfully aware of how miserable it is to be sick right now. People everywhere are down sick with colds or flu bugs, and now apparently the Norovirus has even hit those at the Winter Olympics. The reports are saying that over 1,200 workers had to be quarantined to their rooms to wait for their test results to come back. What a bummer! I suppose I should feel grateful that I am only suffering from a sinus infection that is able to be treated with antibiotics and much needed sleep. But when its taking all your energy just to breathe and blink it can be a tall order to keep up a cheery attitude.

But try telling that to my 22 year old daughter Ashley who was herself feeling sick last night, but who just came bouncing into my house a few minutes ago all cheerful and happy yelling “Just push through it like I did Mom! I just woke up this morning and told myself I felt fine and then…I did!!!”  Oh to be 22 years old again…

For those of us who aren’t 22 and able to just tell our bodies to get over it, I want to wish all of you steaming hot bowls of yummy chicken soup and big snuggly blankets to wrap up in.  And I don’t really care if studies debate on whether chicken soup can actually help you GET better or not because all I know is it makes you FEEL better!  I think that’s because it reminds us of a time we were little and had our mommies around to take care of us and make us chicken noodle soup. Oh the good old days…

Today I am reminded that we should have appreciated our moms being around to take care of us more, and we should have appreciated more our 22 year old bodies that had the ability to ‘will’ themselves better.  Clearly I’m realizing I need to work on just being more appreciative in my life period….and I’m gonna do that right after I figure out whether to feed myself or starve myself….sigh…

~Amy Rees Anderson

1 Comment

  • Michael Fletcher says:

    I had a sore throat and flu at the same time and the flu developed into a light case of pneumonia. I ended up on self-imposed bed rest for about 10 days (pneumonia is not something to try and push through). The 10 days of rest were very, very nice.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.