Getting Sick When Your Old Sucks

Getting a cold, or any kind of minor infection for that matter, after you are in your 30's, I'm now 40 by the way, absolutely stinks.

I had a pretty nasty head cold on Father's Day. I had the whole deal. Sore throat, stuffy nose, a cough and other congestion. I did not have COVID. I took multiple home tests and they all came back negative. After about three days the cold subsided and I felt relatively normal. We left for a family vacation to Lake Okoboji and I thought I was in the clear. But on the third day we were there I felt a tickle in my throat. I assumed it was from the air quality since there was an alert. But the tickle stuck around. Then it got worse. Then I was coughing a good amount. I took another COVID test when we got home and it was negative yet again.

This damn cough was a hindrance. I could go about my daily routine with little to no problem. I would be wiped out by bedtime, but I do a lot. I run five days a week, I take my kids to practices and camps, clean the house, do laundry, grocery shop, all the stuff an at home parent does. So I just figured I was tired from my everyday schedule. But the cough was always there. And then I could not only feel it in my chest, but I could hear it. It sounded like I had sand in my chest and throat. Every time I'd laugh, I'd cough. Every time I took a deep breath, I'd cough. Every time I had dairy, I'd cough. The cough was omnipresent. It was there constantly. I had promised my wife and my folks that if it were still around after that vacation that I'd go to the doctor. I still gave myself another week before caving.

I went to my nurse practitioner this morning. We had a nice visit and we did the usual appointment stuff. And I have been feeling better the past two days so I was hoping for good news. I got the opposite. It is an infection. No bronchitis, no COVID, nothing horrible, but still annoying. She also told me that this could be allergy induced asthma. Even with the temperatures being relatively high here in STL, allergens are still out and blooming. I had never considered this to even be an option. So, along with some antibiotics, I now have an inhaler I have to take before and after working out. I was also given a steroid to fight the infection and loosen the congestion.

The kicker in all this is, my nurse practitioner told me that this is an unfortunate side of aging. Again, I'm only 40. But the way she explained it all made sense. I have two young kids, 11 and 7, who are germ factories. I do a lot of stuff meaning I put myself in the way of germs willingly. I am a coach who is around other 11 and 7 year old's who's caregivers may not be as into vaccines or medicine like my family is. There is any number of reasons. I was also told that it takes longer to recover from this stuff now. An infection from a couple of years ago would have moved its way out of me within five days. We are on almost a month now. My kids get over this stuff in three days. Not me. This is the stuff I feared as I got older. People warned me, but I didn't want to believe them. I figured it was just them and I could rise above it. I know that to be not true anymore.

The fact is I'm old. I will stay sick longer. I will feel worse longer. But I also need to accept it and deal with it. It is a part of life, just a bummer part. Here's to getting old I guess. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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