Fighting a Cold

WEATHER THERE: cloudy, -5C (-9C with windchill), 9 km/hr cross/headwinds
WEATHER BACK: cloudy, -4C (-9C with windchill), 13 km/hr head/crosswinds


I'm not going to lie to you, my bikey friends, it's been a rough couple of days. With the first snow of the year coating the ground and turning to fine ice and thick slush in some areas, it generally makes the bike-commuting a little slower and a bit more difficult. Add to that the fact that both my daughter and I appear to be getting sick - we have been since we got back from Mexico. My throat is sore, I have a whole whack of very charming post-nasal drip, and I've got sinus pressure behind my eyes. Luckily, my breathing is fine - no stuffy nose, no throat-so-raw-it-burns-to-breathe. The problem comes more from sleeping - I've had to drug myself with Tylenol Sinus for Nighttime in order to fall asleep at all because my throat is so uncomfortable, and then once I'm finally asleep my daughter is waking up complaining of (in whining/crying voice): "boogers, mommy!" and "ears dirty!" (what does that even mean??). For the past two days, my mild discomfort during the day has turned into fever-like symptoms in the evening - alternating between chills and sweats, feeling achey - and I feel even less capable of dealing with the midnight wake-ups of my daughter than ever.


At work today, I was operating somewhere around 65-70% of normal capacity because I'm feeling unwell but I'm not full-on sick. Still, I'm utterly exhausted, and I'm cold, and I was a bit under-dressed for how cold it really was out there for my bike-commute. And I know from experience that being under-dressed inevitably causes my muscles to feel slow, heavy, and easily worn out - on top of whatever effect being sick might also have on them. All this doesn't help when I'm being faced with the first icy embraces of winter. And it's only October, damnit!! I could maybe accept it more if it were November. We didn't even have a proper dumping of snow last year until DECEMBER! Why, oh why, did winter have to come so soon?



Sigh . . . I'm still hopeful it'll melt and we'll have a few more days of milder weather before winter is here to stay. I just hope this early dip in temperature doesn't mean we're in for a rough winter.