I should confess before I start to write this post that I am under the influence. Of drugs.

Yes, indeed it’s true. Floating about in my system at the moment is some cough mixture (taken via a swig of bottle in lieu of measuring cup thingy to measure 5ml); Betadine throat  gargle… although ostensibly I don’t swallow it, some may have seeped through my throat into my system. And then there are the lozenges I’m sucking to numb my throat – with the added advantage that I can’t taste the cough mixture as I skoll it (it’s apricot flavoured – blech. WTF is up with that?!). There’s also the nasal spray which must be potent as you can only use it three times a day and 6 hrs apart. Naturally I’m also popping some painkillers cos the constant dry coughing has given me a headache and sore ribs.

Oh, and there was quite a bit of some diet coke earlier.

Yes, you guessed it. I have a cold.

It was fated to happen given that I was super-excited about my 5-day weekend (in honour of my niece’s 16^th birthday and mother coming to town).

It started with a sore throat on Sunday – Monday (felt like I was swallowing razor blades), although the Betadine gargle had almost cleared that up by Tuesday afternoon, which is when I was hit with the dry cough and runny nose.

I have had a chance over the 5 days to catch up with my visiting mother, but the break hasn’t quite gone as planned.

Although as I was heading to the pharmacy to stock up on drugs I was reminded that my life really doesn’t suck all that much!

You will recall that after my injured back I was stressing about getting back into the gym this week but as I cannot breathe without coughing and my nose is so stuffed it may well cause me to topple forward, I’ve made the executive decision to have the rest of the week off exercise. I’m quite proud of my moderate approach as usually I’d be guilt-ridden.

Tomorrow I’m due to return to work (no matter what!) and I’d usually attend pilates but I don’t think I could even cope with the breathing and stretching.

So, I’ve decided I need to look forward (through the windscreen, not the rearview mirror – to quote some other bloggers). The last few days have been a blur of unhealthy food (too lazy to cook or prepare anything) and medication.

I’ll focus on getting better confident that next week I’ll be back into the swing of things. You’ll be pleased to know that I do realise this is a minor setback, not a life-changing event. (So yay! I’m growing as a person etc etc!)

* I’m sure you will have noticed (waiting with bated breath and all that!) that this blog post is actually a day late, as I decided to do the final edit (early this morning) with a clear(er) head. However any typos or grammatical errors should be blamed on doped-up Deborah!