Fighting back

My goodness. I’ve been in a post-Superbowl coma for the past couple of days.


Or at least I think I’ve been. I have never been so tired in my whole life as I was on Monday. I’m not somebody who needs their 8 hours sleep a day, I can get by on 5-6 but clearly I’m totally incapable of coping on less than 3. I came home and went straight to bed and slept for over 2 hours, I don’t think I’ve ever done that, I’m not a napping kind of gal. I’ve felt pretty chipper since then but last night started to feel a bit ropey. That feeling has continued through today and I’m now wondering if it possibly isn’t Superbowl Coma I’m suffering from but Common Cold instead.

I hope not, I’ve had a pretty brilliant sickness record so far. No colds in 2010. Nothing since having flu in 2009, that sucker made my white blood cells superhuman (just not so superhuman that they could stop blood clots. But whatever). I crept through November and December, while everyone was dropping around me, praying to whatever or whoever might be out there to spare me the germs and it really did work.

I have also decided that the way to get rid of a cold or to at least not to give in to one is to beat it to within an inch of its life out of your body.

Back in November I was pretty sure I was getting a cold. This happened to be the same night that I was planning on Zumba-ing my troubles away. Now the old me would have swooped on this cold like a vulture on a carcass and celebrated the fact that I had a legitimate excuse to not go to the gym. But the new me decided that I would not be lazy and I would not succumb and would go and dance it out of my system.

It totally worked. I’m serious. Maybe that cold would never have taken hold and would have disappeared on its own but the gym certainly didn’t hurt it. I was brought up in a school of “Do not give in” which applied to illness, school work and entering Blue Peter competitions in the vain hope of winning a stupid badge.

As if to verify my feelings, this report appeared on the BBC website, the day or so after I had combated germs with Latin dance exercise. Proof, I say, proof! I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence that since I’ve been healthier and going to the gym more I’ve suddenly stopped being struck down with so many coughs and colds, previously I’d been quite the hotbed for them. As the lbs have disappeared, my germ-fighting spirit appears to have grown.

And so I’m about to put my theory to the test again. I feel pretty crappy at the moment. Headache, what appears to be a phlegm factory in my lungs and an all-pervasive tiredness which is making me want to put my head on my desk and drift off to sleep. It would be very easy for me to cancel the gym tonight. But I’m going to be brave, I’m going to march into that place and Spin this cold out of my system.

Failing that, I’m probably going to need some cold remedies. And some sleep.