Picture: tove erbs from Pixabay
AND THEN suddenly on Friday night, I just had the flu! And as weird as that sounds, how it happened was just as bizarre.
After a tough week at the office, I decided to treat myself and have an early night on Friday. So by 9.30pm, I had shut off all electronic devices and had snuggled (or maybe collapsed) into my comfy bed. However, at 11pm I woke up with all the symptoms: runny nose, aching joints, scratchy throat and nagging cough – I must admit, I had a late-night influenza cadenza.
It caught me completely unawares; really blindsided me! On Friday night, there I was, a normal, healthy functioning human being, but by Saturday morning I was a petrie dish of goggas wearing dirty takkies and influenza tracksuits.
I could kick myself, but I couldn’t say that I was unaware of the dangers of overwork. I had often shared a quote, written back in 1905, with many of my friends about how detrimental it is to overtax oneself, and here I had been revving my engine in the red for over a week, and now I would be paying the price.
The quote, written in the early 20th Century by someone passionate about health reform at the time, goes: “It is not work, but overwork, without periods of rest, that breaks people down, endangering the life forces. Those who overwork soon reach the place where they work in a hopeless way.”
I can relate to this!
But at least something good came from this health wobble. I got to perform an experiment that I have been dying to try out.
I had heard, from what I consider a reliable source, that to stop a nagging cough, all you have to do is cut up an onion, place the slices or dices in a plastic bag, insert your foot into the bag, tie the bag around your ankle and then put a sock over it before retiring for the night. Apparently, the soles have the body’s biggest pores – maybe that’s why feet are called ‘paws’ – and more toxins can be extracted through the bottoms of the feet.
I had been telling friends that I had heard about this remedy and they had given me affirming nods whilst rolling their eyes. But on Saturday night, when the unrelenting cough started I could finally test it for myself … and, at the same time, have ready-chopped onions for my morning omelette. If this worked, I could transition from “I heard …” to “I know …”
Let me tell you, chopping onions at midnight, with your eyes filled with tears is unpleasant, and it feels pretty strange to have packets on your feet through the night, but I can also tell you that the cough went away. And could I just add, to set minds at rest, that I did not use all the onions for my breakfast.
This time the flu did not manage to overpower me and get me into a headlock like it usually does. I would cough up crud for weeks in the past. This time recovery was much smoother.
However, what I have realised is that the suddenness of the bite of the flu bug only occurred because of me – over an extended period of time – not doing the simple things right.
For weeks, focused on getting work done, I wasn’t exercising as much as I used to. I spent my days and some nights just sitting in front of my laptop hacking away at the keyboard. I would feel the warmth of the sun for about five minutes in a day, when I was lucky, seeing as I had confined myself to my self-imposed indoor imprisonment.
I have heard it said that your body will let you push yourself to the extreme. But when you get to the breaking point, your body will find a way not to let you do any more.
This tells me that this ‘flu break’ was a blessing in disguise, and a timely warning that I’d have to work smarter before something bigger packed in, something that would require more than onion slices to fix.