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When you're working with children, or taking transit or going to school (all things I do) you are bound to get sick. Personally I've been recovering from an immune system that was MIA for 2.5 years*, so the fact that it's taken me this long in the season to catch a bug is more of a blessing than I care to remember as I sneeze my brains out. I am a firm believer thatif you are able to be a recluse, DO IT. I've have basically been a shut in for the last 5 days, keeping my germs to myself. I call this : Shutting it Down.
How to SHUT IT DOWN :
-Stay inside
-No kissing
-Less talking
-Lots of water/tea
-Lots of netflix
-Napping encouraged
-Comfortable clothing only
-Showering optional.
I was actually quite lucky this week, I had 2 sets of siblings (4 students) reschedule for completely other reasons! That's rare and would normally bum me out, but I only taught 1 lesson all week which was a nice break while I was sick and it reiterated to me how close and personal children get as a natural state of communication and how important it is to clean common areas like my piano, to wash my hands frequently and to just get sick when I get sick.
This has been a hard lesson for me because I'm a bit emetophobic (the fear of getting sick/throwing up). I know, I know, that doesn't mix well with children but I promise I'm working on it. *When I was in first year university I had 8 sinus/ear infections and I was allergic to the carpetting in my dorm room. It was brutal and I was constantly being cycled through anti-biotics thanks to the student health centre. Because of that my immune system was wipped and I carried on paranoid of getting sick, getting antibotics, getting thrush and just cycling back. THANKFULLY, I've recovered from that through some detoxes and better eating and sleeping habits as well as reducing my caffeine intake.
When I got sick this week I gave myself time; to sniffle and binge on netflix eat soup and take vitamins, to sleep it off, to drink neocitran. I gave myself permission to not go to class, to not practice, to not sing, to barely teach. I even took a bath. These things are important and they are part of my shutting down process. I want my body to recover from this fully, not just repress symptoms. Of course I'm taking advil to reduce the inflamation but I'm not using it at it'smaximum dosage.
The truth is that by going out and managing my "sickness" while I go to rehearsal or class or teach is just a) exposing more people to my germs and b) preventing my body from resting, which is why I got sick anyway. My insights to being sick have changed drastically in the last year, last two years certainly. I have accepted that I love teaching kids and kids are backpacks for germs. I'm grateful for this opportunity to be at home and veg out, for the chance to collect myself and do important administrative things from my bed and for the knowledge that teaching is worth the sniffles even if it calls for me to occasionally SHUT IT DOWN.