I’ve spent the last week or so with a pretty nasty cough. But it was just a cough, something to be soldiered through. After all, I’ve got work to do, and a city to explore.
Then it wasn’t just a cough anymore. It was a freight train that slammed into me and made it impossible to do anything but binge watch Dr. Who (call me the impossible girl… impossible to get out of bed and do anything clever). In fact, you know its really really bad when I take my time off to be sick in bed instead of, you know, literally anything else.
This freight train (charmingly named “Bronchitis”) has caused me to miss about every planned event that I was excited about in Budapest. I’ve missed archery competitions, sunset cruises on the Danube, a canoeing trip, and spelunking through caves beneath the city. The one event I did rally for was an outing that I’d planned to celebrate Kim’s birthday and mine, to go to a “sparty”. A gratuitous party in one of the more famous bathhouses here. It was also apparently the worst possible one I could have chosen as it made everything 10x worse. In fact, the Hungarian doctor I went to warned me specifically against the bathhouses. Apparently the water is great for your skin, joints, and arthritis; and really horrible for any sort of respiratory illness. I woke up the next morning with a fever over 100° F. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My roommates throughout this whole ordeal have been wonderful, getting me food, asking if I need anything, insisting that my constant coughing really isn’t annoying and that I shouldn’t feel bad (bless them all).
Despite knowing I need the self care, to take time, to not push myself, I am struggling with feeling like I’ve missed out on valuable experiences in a place I don’t know if I’m ever going to visit again (though I hope to!). Remote year has this strange effect on time. Sometimes I feel like I’m traveling in the TARDIS, where weeks can go by in the span of days, but everything moves much faster than expected. Every lost opportunity is felt, every night I spend coughing is another night wasted.
Being sick is part of traveling, it’s part of life. But its definitely a part I wish I could fast forward through.
Have I mentioned I’m really whiny when I’m sick?
-M
