Fluey

The worst feeling in the world is when you're getting a cold but it's right at the beginning and you haven't worked out yet what it is. You feel tired, you might feel achy, you drag a bit and don't have as much energy as usual. You might have a tickle in the throat or down in the lungs, or maybe a soreness or a little cough. You might feel hot - especially confusing if the seasons have just turned and it's the first bit of hot weather. There's just a whole systemic feeling of not-rightness, not-as-good-as-usual-ness. Before the symptoms get a bit worse and clarify themselves, it always feels like something huge and bad and permanent is happening. Arthritis? Recurrence of sinus or asthma problems? Decline in fitness, despite exercise, which means you need to do even more just to feel normal and keep yourself on an even keel? Maybe the mental realisation that everything is bad and in decline and not worth doing - because negative thoughts follow the aches and tiredness. Before the symptoms get worse, you have this feeling in your whole body, a feeling of decline, but it feels like it's something permanent that signals a downward trend in your life until you end up dead.

In a day or two, when you actually get a bad cough or a fever or a stuffy nose, or maybe you get a proper flu with fever and chills and shakes and loss of appetite, then it's clear that you're just sick, and most importantly, that you'll get better. Even though the symptoms are worse, the experience is better, because you know what it is and you don't have to worry. Illnesses get better, bodies heal, and the common cold is one of the least worrying things that can happen to you.