General bellyaching

Well, I have flu :-( I think I picked it up on my flight home from Sydney last Thursday lunchtime, there was a passenger seated opposite who was coughing and sneezing with concerning frequency. I can't prove it, but given my onset of symptoms was Saturday morning, it seems pretty plausible.

It's Influenza A, according to the RAT test I did, and it is kicking me so hard; so much worse than Covid has been for me the two times I have had it. Feeling pretty miserable, especially because I have given it to my poor husband who is also suffering with it. I'm past the febrile stage, but most of the other symptoms are still trucking on, with the worst being the painful dry cough and the joint ache. Or maybe the fatigue and brain fog. Or it could be the headache. Anyway, you get the idea.

2025 has been a nonstop parade of medical / health drama for my household so far, kicking off with my 21 year old's surgery in early January (which thankfully went well, but was still stressful). We then swung directly into health problems for both my younger kids, one of my autoimmune conditions flaring, and of course my old dog's serious medical crisis which is still not fully resolved (although he is stable now and not losing any more ground at this stage). In the last week, the dial's been turned up to 11 with a new health issue that had me in emergency overnight on Thursday with one of my daughters, more tests with potentially concerning results, and now the bloody bollocking flu. And now the cat is showing some signs that her thyroid might be off the boil, just for extra points. Both the animals are elderly (dog is 16, cat is 15.5) so we are definitely into the years where health problems will become more frequent and more severe for them both, but there is no denying that it is painful and stressful, both emotionally and financially.

I am also having something of a career / work existential ... well, crisis might be too strong a word, but blip? questioning? ... which is not helping. I'm worrying, as I often do, that I may not find new projects when my current ones are completed, and therefore worrying about earning enough to cover my share of family costs. My biggest anxiety is that if I did need to go back to salaried work after 10 years freelancing, I'd struggle to even get employed because of my age (I'm just over 50, which I am informed makes me marginally employable at best), and if I did get a job, that I'd struggle with working in an office and answering to a boss again. These concerns may all be unfounded; I have had dry spells before with project work and it's always resolved into fresh work after a hairy month or two, and I might be able to get a job and adjust to it with less difficulty than I think. At the moment, though, they all feel like real worries, I'm sure not assisted by the "flu blues" which is absolutely dominating my emotional state right now.

I'm sorry, I know that was all extremely boring, but this is me using the blog as a diary (which is one of the things I did say I would be doing!) Next post will be a book one or a poem one for sure.

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