I woke up with a sore throat on Christmas Day, accompanied by a mildly runny nose and a touch of nausea and malaise. It's day 3 now and I have a slight headache with occasional bouts of mild dizziness - feel a bit muzzy with no appetite, but throat not that sore, no cough really although I'm getting a tickle now and then, no fever and no congestion.
Pre-covid, I'd have thought nothing of it. But since covid first got me in 2020 by pretending to be a mild cold (almost exactly like this) for 3-5 days, then knocking me off my feet with a rainbow of awful symptoms and eventually the arrival of an ambulance, I get very anxious about what might be coming a few days after symptoms start. I'm constantly on countdown and worrying about what I've read of other people's experiences of flu/covid, of new/worse symptoms kicking in after a few days.
Part of my anxiety is my DHs reaction. He is fairly rufty tufty - no dressing gown of doom for him, he just does the long, slow blink of pain whenever I glance at him when he's sick. 😂
When I'm ill - which is infrequent, although I tend to get way sicker than he does - he says I'm "a terrible patient". He says I "moan and groan". Neither of which I think is true? I know the difference between a mild illness where you can soldier on, and one where you need to isolate from others or be in bed. But he views every illness as mild and that you should "power through it" - he gets very impatient with me for needing to be in bed, but he's never experienced any proper illness that has laid him up for more than 12 hrs in the 30 years I've known him.
When I had covid, I was terrified - I've never felt so ill in my life. He asked how I was feeling 10 times a day and I could only say "the same as when you last asked me" for the 6 days I was in bed. I couldn't stomach food and he kept barking at me that I HAD TO EAT! otherwise I wasn't helping myself. I know that, but standing over me with a piece of toast and paracetamol bellowing instructions isn't helpful. He was so nasty, he stormed off and said "I'll leave you to it then, I can't help you while you're revelling in illness". I was scared, it was Nov 2020, I'd never experienced anything like and nobody knew what could happen. When I finally couldn't respond to him very well because I was delirious, it was HIM who called an ambulance, and they said I was sick enough to go to hospital but I didn't have to (I chose to stay at home).
4 years later he tells everybody that the paramedics said I had a high heart rate because I was "panicking"! When I had a stomach bug a couple of years back and was in bed with nausea and active diarrhoea 48hrs in, he told a neighbour that I was to fine to go for a dog walk with her that day, and told me I should get up and power through! Whilst shitting myself and fainting presumably (I get the vasovagal response with diarrhoea). I also had sudden flu symptoms the day before we were due to go away visiting for the weekend - I had a high temp, sore throat and stomach upset and said I'd stay home. He guilted me so much that I relented and went, visiting multiple people and staying in a caravan feeling dreadful and with, as usual, diarrhoea (in a chemical toilet, nice).
Anyway, the upshot is that now, even mild cold symptoms make me nervous about what might develop after 3-5 days, and how DH is going to be about it.
I do take medication for phobic anxiety (emetophobia, so stories of vomiting starting on day 4 of flu or covid are terrifying), but I don't have health anxiety or hypochondria as such. But I do seem to be getting worse.