I'm Going Viral

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Sometimes I think retirement is turning me into a hypochondriac. When I recorded in this blog my first illness after being sniffle-free for the first fifteen months of retirement, I never  for a moment thought that it would be the first of many viruses that I would succumb to. Where on Earth do they come from?

The latest one started with an invasion of my throat, but after a week I finally thought I'd conquered it and enjoyed a lovely day out in Knaresborough. Then, boom, it struck again; this time on both right and left flanks i.e. both throat and ears. Honestly a girl (and a senior one at that) can only take so much and the latest drone attack on my nasal cavities (it's not a cold, there's no sniffing) has me on the verge of surrender.

"Don't visit me," my mother, bouncing with her own good health, said on the phone, "Oh, and I'm not coming to see you either. Viruses act in unpredictable ways."

Wisdom indeed, or has she been working on scientific research at the US Institute of Health which has detected a new method of virus-spread through clusters.

At a personal level I have been broadening my own understanding  of how viruses are transmitted. Dispersal through the air is common, although the only thing I have seen flying lately (other than all those thunder flies) is dust from the harvesting in the neighbouring field. Could my body have yielded to a wheat virus?

What about opening doors and holding banisters in public places? Are dodgy knees and descending steep steps without the confidence to leave go of a handrail the root cause?

As for washing hands for protection, based on my experience it's clearly insufficient whilst the use of hand sanitisers is apparently counter productive as they purportedly quash immunity levels in the longer term.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating; after all it's apparently normal for a healthy adult to suffer from a cold virus 2-4 times a year. 

When you are working, attack or not, you soldier on through the battle-scarred environment of the computer workstation, water cooler and photocopying machine. In retirement you stop, obliged to cancel fitness classes and other appointments through an unwillingness to spread illness and also respect for your reduced muscle capacity; isolation, boredom and frustration creep in.

You are no longer the heroic stalwart of the fight but rather a victim of the onslaught, weakly maintaining the ritual of watering in the greenhouse in your one solitary attempt at keeping the home fires burning.

It's all a sense of perspective; despite or perhaps because of the good ambiance that retirement generally brings, when it is interrupted then you can feel a thousand times worse than you ever did dragging your virus-ridden body into work. It's all in the mind of course and on the plus side, another virus is just one more nasty enemy that you've developed antibodies to resist in the future.


Comments

Jane said…
NOT what I thought your post was going to be about - I imagined a post that went viral as opposed to you catching a virus or several. I will gloat briefly as I've not had a single virus since retiring in 2014 though as a teacher I certainly had more than my fair share while working. However, I will admit to getting injured physically much more now that I'm an aging retiree who won't give up volleyball, cycling or hiking! Not Fair!
11 August 2018 at 19:15
Caree Risover said…
Okay, gloat justified: I'm jealous and feel even worse! Just kidding. Long may you remain virus free and recover quickly from those injuries.
12 August 2018 at 22:09
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