The London Lurgy

So… Tuesday I woke up with what felt like daggers in my throat. I decided some hot coffee would help and went in to work. By noon, I was dragging, my head swimming and I had a low-grade fever. (I’m assuming anyway, since I didn’t actually take my temp). I left work and went home and slept on and off for the rest of the day. Wednesday was worse! Throat pain was gone, but my nose was congested and I felt pretty terrible so I stayed home. Luckily I found a stash of meds in the kitchen so those seemed to help. Thursday I felt a bit better so took my chances and went to work. It was a bad idea. I felt better, but had a pretty terrible cough. If I had a pound for every time someone asked if I was okay, or that I looked like death I’d be rich. I made it through the day and when I came home I had a fever again. Took Friday off to rest and recover and am currently drinking tea and watching The Great British Bakeoff.

Apparently it’s quite common for foreigners to catch what would be a normal cold, but it hits us much harder because we don’t have the antibodies for these germs. This usually happens within the first 3 months. I’ve been here for a month and a half…

I feel a LOT better today but I do feel weak and exhausted. When you’re sick in London it’s a different sort of thing when deciding to go to work or not. You have to walk, you have to get on the bus or the tube and then walk some more. In LA if I was sick, I’d try to go in and then I could just easily hop in my car and drive 9 minutes home. Here it’s an effort to get anywhere which generally isn’t a bad thing, but when you’re feeling poorly it makes everything worse.

In America the commercials that come on during the day are all about trade schools, insurance and getting a degree online. Here they are about funeral preparations, life insurance for your loved ones and cat caregivers for when you die. Yes. Cat. Caregivers. For. When. You. Die. It’s all a bit depressing.

The good part about these last few days has been receiving two care packages from my mom. She sent me some of things I left behind (coffee press, scarf, polaroid camera), but she also sent snacks and some Thanksgiving essentials that would be a pain to find here. THANKS MOM! ❤