This (brief!) episode was recorded as I was in the throes of last week’s viral melange, and I am very happy to report that my voice WILL sound better in the next ep.
3 illness-related tips:
1- Plan to get sick. If you don’t, amazing! But you probably will. It is definitely better to have thought through / anticipated how you might handle it. Consider having a baseline kit of medications in the house and if there are kids — some discussion with your partner ahead of time on how the burden might be shared.
2- Try not to schedule so tightly that there’s no buffer. This is why I sometimes request random days off from work months in advance and why I start getting antsy when I can’t see any white space on my weekly spread! (As Laura put it eloquently – create a resilient schedule, rule #5.)
3- DO NOT beat yourself up for doing less while sick! Rest as much as you can. Let the kids have screens if you need to. Watch that TV series (I got through S2 of Sex Lives of College Girls – perfect illness fodder). The physical suffering is hard enough without that ‘second arrow’ of guilt for doing less. This is your time to do as little as possible.
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4 Comments
I am glad you are feeling better! The point about childcare is a really good one – last week my daughter and I both had all the illness. My husband and I generally split childcare on sick days on a weekly rota, but I was barely able to watch. The two year old would have been impossible. I felt bad he had to take a day off to watch a sick kid while I was already off sick myself.
I did get to watch all of Emily in Paris season 3 while being bed bound, so there was an upside, but definitely a nice and seasonally pertinent reminder to incorporate resilience into scheduling!
Timely post for me as I am recuperating from surgery. I built in some cushion in my work schedule, as anticipated event. But I couldn’t know how much time I’d need….or whether my kid would also be home, which they were, yesterday. I’m also finding myself in a strange limbo where I’m clearly not ready to be up to my usual activites but also capable of doing *something* I suspect if I weren’t a person hardwired to work ALL THE TIME I’d be more comfortable sitting in bed. Today’s “to do” involves minimal necessary housework (cat litter and dirty dishes), a phone call to cancel an appointment that now seems ill advised, making some more soup, email triage, and skimming the book my students are reading. And I will probably watch a movie on the Oscars list before Tiny Boy gets home from school…
oh no I’m so sorry you are sidelined! I 100% give you permission to give your brain a rest. Oscars movie sounds perfect.
I hope you feel better soon. This was a good topic and timely!