Last week, as my teenager was fighting a virus, she looked at me and said, “It’s hard to be sick when you’re sick.” I knew exactly what she meant. You see, I had a cold for the first time in two years (that in itself is a miracle with all the time we’ve spent at the hospital) and I was miserable. I couldn’t imagine how she felt.
My teen has good days and bad days but even on the good ones, she still fights headaches, dizziness and nausea. POTS is a constant battle and it takes every ounce of energy she has to get out of bed, get ready for school and be present. Add a weekly migraine to the mix and it just sucks. It’s hard to be sick. Period.
So what happens when she gets something on top of all the rare diseases she already has? She gets really sick. A stomach bug that would take a teen down for 24 hours becomes a three-day ordeal. A common cold turns into sinus issues quickly. A rash can morph into cellulitis over night. Everything is made so much more complicated than an average illness.
It’s hard to be sick when you’re sick.
When it takes every ounce of energy you have to attempt to function every day, being sick is monumentally more difficult. And, that’s a hard concept to explain to healthy person who thinks that a cold is just the sniffles. We’ve learned that the hard way more than once with sick kids at school and dance. If anyone is sick, there’s a good chance Rosie will get it and it will linger much longer than anyone thinks. It totally stinks. Yet, there’s nothing we can do about it except load up on Vitamin C and try to avoid all the germs. Sounds easier than it actually is.
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