For one week and four days I have had the mother of sore throats. For someone who rarely gets sick this was a record for me. I can usually shrug off the flu in a day and boomerang a cold back from whence it came before it even has a chance to sneeze.
Sometimes my throat was so painful it caused me to flinch even when I wasn’t swallowing.
I asked my clever dancer daughter if her sore throat had made swallowing excruciating and her neck ache?
“Yes Mum, that’s what a sore throat is…just in case you didn’t know since you never get ill!”
“Ahh…and I’d suggested you had strained your neck in a dance move and to work through it.”
“Yes Mum, but that’s all right, it didn’t last long and wasn’t really that bad.” What a kind and understanding child I have.
Mine was really ‘that bad!’ It graced me with a fever for a day, aches and pains for another day, a loss of singing voice for two Sundays (a welcome respite for those who sit near me), the physical inability to utter a sound for several consecutive hours venturing into a mere whisper for several more. Mostly it suffered me restless nights for eleven days which resulted in a steady progression of inertia as the days passed with no relief.
The cough that accompanied it was surface; a dry bark that caused the upper part of my throat to hurt as if I’d been shouting like the fishwife I’m not.
Kindly, hubs suggested I gargle with salt water but somehow the achey-ness in my throat was buried beneath the muscles; nowhere syrup, lozenges, whisky or salt water could probe.
Wondering how long I would go before succumbing to a doctor or worrying about it being more than a sore throat (when does one draw the line between normal and unusual?) and despairing of it ever clearing up since the pain persevered steadily, I awoke today and it had gone!
Gone, just like that.
In the aftermath I feel a dull ache when I lift my tongue akin to the feeling of numbness wearing off after spending hours in a dentist’s chair enduring a crown.
I perform other flexing exercises for no other reason than to test the back areas of my mouth for lingering tenderness left over from the 11 days of chronic pain and tension as my throat swelled in an attempt to bar entry to everything trying to gain access to my stomach.
I also feel as though I have a fly’s wing stuck in my throat. I can’t dislodge it, it flutters and tickles, a mild irritant.
Hubs said he would have said it felt like a downy feather. He is a Southern Gentleman with a romantic bent.
I related my childhood story to him, of swallowing a wasp at Regent’s Park Zoo. I coughed and spat it out but a wing had dislodged itself in my throat.
Whatever is in my throat reminds me of that time, why I say a ‘fly’s wing’ and not a ‘wasp’s wing’ is beyond me.
I am left amazed at the ability of my body to heal such a painful affliction, all on its own.
Not a trace of the former discomfort remains, just a fluttering wing to remind me and that will soon be gone.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
No comments so far!
2012-03-29 01:23:16
I hope that you saw a doctor and I hope that you are getting better. We need you well!
Take care!
Linda Pilkington
2012-03-29 01:23:16
I hope that you saw a doctor and I hope that you are getting better. We need you well!
Take care!
Linda Pilkington
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