What I (H)ate Wednesday

Ah, another Wednesday in the blogging world... I just love scrolling through my reader on these mornings, sinking deeper and deeper into my chair with each picture of greek yogurt, granola, chicken, and quinoa. I, on the other hand, may or may not have had macaroni and cheese for dinner last night. And no, it wasn't even homemade (although I do make pretty good homemade mac & cheese) -- we're talking straight from the box, squeeze the cheese, convince hubby to bring me a bowl because I can't even pull myself off the couch to walk 10 feet to our stove. No, my WIAW would be a sad disappointment amongst all the chia seeds, protein shakes, and sauteed vegetables. This week I do have an excuse though...

... except, here I am at work. What's wrong with this picture?

In an act of supreme talent, I managed to get right up to that too-sick-to-get-out-of-bed line without quite crossing it. And if I'm well enough to get up in the mornings, I figure I'd rather be miserable at work than waste a whole day off being miserable. So here I sit.
The thing that really gets me, though, is that this is not your run-of-the-mill cold. My type-A self takes a lot of comfort in the fact that I always know exactly how my colds are going to go: 
 -- sometime in the evening, usually after dinner when I'm curled up watching TV with Dan, I feel kind of a funny tickle in my throat. I know what it is immediately, but stay in denial for as long as possible. Approximately 2,000 carefully gauged swallows later, it's worse and I've resigned myself to the fact that the next few days are going to suck. I drag myself to bed, hoping for a miracle.
 -- I wake up the next morning with a full blown sore throat, a runny nose, and a headache. I go through several cups of tea, a few boxes of kleenex, and quite a lot of self-pity that first day.
 -- I can't sleep without changing positions every two minutes because I can't breathe. This continues for three or four nights. My husband just loves me.
 -- On the second day, my throat feels better and the faucet in my nose has stopped running, but is now badly clogged. I spend my day shifting in my chair, trying to find the right position to allow just a few breaths before everything closes up again. My coworkers just love me.
 -- On the third or fourth day, the cough starts. It begins as a congested one, the kind your grandmother would have called "productive." Over the next few weeks, it becomes a gentle hack -- still productive in that it might produce a lung if pushed too hard. The day my mom/husband threatens to make me see a doctor, it magically disappears.
So if nothing else, I am cheered by the fact that in my 25 years, I've become an old pro at this. I know what's coming, I know when to stock up on kleenex and tea, and I know that the most miserable part only lasts a couple days. I just keep telling myself that I'll feel much better by the weekend, and I push through it.
But this cold. This one breaks all the rules. This one refuses to follow the pattern. This is the one that may drive me around the bend.
It started after my sleepless Sunday night, when I woke up on Monday feeling like a train had found its way into our bedroom and spent a few hours making tracks over my head. All day, I fought a killer headache and some incredibly sore muscles, and that night I enjoyed several hours of wheezy, itchy, allergy-like fun. I've been coughing ever since, but just a dry, annoying cough. Yesterday the headache continued, as did the shortness of breath. There were a few sneezes thrown in for good measure. 
But last night, just when I was starting to question what on earth this actually was that I had come down with, I felt that familiar twinge. UGH. Sure enough, this morning I have a sore throat, a three-day old headache, and a major bone to pick with the cold that decided to hang out and play for a few days before getting its act together and doing what it's supposed to do: follow a schedule. I'm left with so many questions now -- am I nearing the end or is this only the beginning? Should I just cancel the rest of the week? Does this strange progression of symptoms even count at the one winter cold I get every year? Will my head explode before I get any of these answers?
Just what you wanted to read today, in the midst of what every other blogger and their sister ate yesterday: the anatomy of a cold. You should probably go wash your hands now, because I'd surely hate to pass on any germs. Have a healthy Wednesday!

   Love,

    Meg