Marshmallow Brain

Hello everyone,
I hope this blog finds you all well. We have had a very cold week here and everyone has been sharing their germs! Last week it was my turn, I came down with proper man flu last Friday, I spent the whole of last weekend traveling between my bed and the loo, but stupidly instead of having a couple of days off work to recover properly I went back to work on Monday, knowing I would have Tuesday off to recover, and that's how it went all week, as I work every other day I wasn't really getting better, I was spending my days off asleep and then dragging myself through my days at work.
This is a subject I haven't really touched on before, being poorly brings a whole host of other difficulties when you have sight problems.
For me, as soon as I feel unwell my balance goes, I am more likely to walk into things, trip over or drop things. I find it harder to absorb information and its almost like my tiny little brain has shut down, unfortunately, not everyone is sympathetic to this so I try to carry on as normal. I can only describe the feeling in my head is like having your brain replaced with a big marshmallow, information keeps coming at you but it just bounces off the outside of the marshmallow, and inside is so thick and solid you just cant function properly.
I also find I cant keep my contact lenses in for as long, they seem to dry up, and without them, as you know, my sight is very poor.
When your head is thick with a heavy cold, your ears get blocked, or they become more sensitive to noise, my brain relies on my hearing to help me through the day, so when my brain realises that I cant hear it tries to work harder to find other ways of helping me...smell..nope, all I can smell is snot, and snot does have a smell!
So with sight, hearing and smell not working and my brain turned into a marshmallow, I have little hope of making it through the day without either having a sleep so my body and more importantly my brain can rest, or losing the plot and screaming my head off at a innocent person because I am so frustrated and tired.
People must look at me and think, ohhhh for gods sake its only a cold, and I do understand that, if only you would stop and think about what this means, I am totally exhausted, my brain is franticly working harder to  get me functioning normally, well, normally for me! and I cant, so I have to stop, stopping means I have let a simple cold defeat me, I can climb mountains and navigate myself around my local area independently, but give me a cold and I am buggered!
It takes longer to get over being unwell too, I know that's what happens as we get older, but I really have to push myself to get going again, once I do, its fine, its just finding the right time, and a safe time. Poor Ralph has missed our long walks, so I thought I would pull myself together and go out, we both wrapped up, we only walked about a quarter of a mile before I realised that my face was burning hot, the noise outside was sooo much louder than usual, I just couldn't walk in a straight line and I had forgotten my tissues, so much to Ralphs dismay, we turned back, went home and slept on the sofa for the rest of the day.
I really do enjoy silence, I always have, there is something full-filling about sitting with your feet up, eyes closed and complete silence, I feel like it restores something inside me.
All this sitting around and sleeping during the day has meant that I have been staying up slightly later at night and sitting with the girls while they watch TV, Tuesday night, I think it was Tuesday, yeah, it must have been, cos Ralph and I had slept all day on the sofa, anyway, I was allowed full control of the remote for the telly...something that is very rare in my house, mostly because I don't 'watch' telly, I listen to bits and then flick from channel to channel as I get bored.
I stumbled across a documentary called 'The moaning of life' with this guy called Karl Pilkington, so at first he seems to be travelling around the world trying stuff and moaning about it, I had missed the first half due to my constant flicking, but I had come in just as he was having a head massage in Tokyo to make his head smaller, this interested me, ohhh no wait, I saw a little bit before that where he was in a country where they didn't need food, these people were all sitting on the ground looking at the sun as all the nourishment they needed would come from the sun, sorry but all the nourishment I need comes from chocolate! Sun is nourishment for the mind, food is nourishment for the body, anyways, I didn't quite understand the sun thing as I hadn't seen it from the beginning, after Karl had his head massaged, and done nothing but moan all the way through it, and then couldn't really decide if his head was smaller or not, he went on to spend the day with a guy in Tokyo who is blind, they made Karl 'mechanically blind' and he spent the day with this guy, this guy was great, he was just so independent, totally confident in his surroundings, he went off to see his mates with Karl in toe, and they did some rock climbing activity, this blind guy was up and gone in seconds, while Karl barely got his feet off the ground! if you get the chance, look it up, its well worth the view. I related mostly to when they were having a conversation about housework and being house proud, I used to be terribly house proud and I would never have considered going out before I had cleaned or tidied my house, I don't feel like this anymore, and it got me wondering why?  Is because I don't see 'dirt' or cobwebs any more? or is it because life means a different thing now? I still do my housework and have adopted a attitude of just because I cant see it doesn't mean it doesn't need cleaning, so I do clean, but its maybe not as thorough as it used to be, and maybe I miss bits, but really, at the end of the day, is it that important? surly we waste time obsessing over cleaning, and worrying that we aren't doing it as well as we should, the dust will still be there when we are not so why worry about it?
I have had some more exciting news this week, that I will hopefully be able to tell you all about next time.
Take care, speak soon xx
Ps) I wonder how many of you fancy eating a marshmallow now? :)