#after muddling through all the holidays and miserable cold january with every rhinovirus and ear/nose/throat bug in their area

[sneezeshame]

a scenario where someone just catches cold after cold back to back for weeks, each time just clearing up enough to breathe through their nose for a night or two before getting hit with another scratchy throat and runny nose. they’re so worn down and miserable and can’t believe it’s happening again when they still have a cough from the last one. they never stay home sick and instead push themselves further, putting themselves around even more germs with an even more battered immune system, and at a certain point it’s unclear if they keep catching new colds or if its the same one they just can’t shake or maybe they’re wading through multiple bugs at the same time and when they aren’t catching colds they’re suffering from the after effects, a sinus infection, bronchitis, laryngitis, perpetually chapped lips and nostrils, they feel a little achy and shivery all the time, a fever sometimes, day after day where they lose their consanants and their voice blows out and falls into a whisper. the humidifier never leaves their bedside, they go through tissue box after tissue box and bottle after bottle of cold medicine, it’s all relentless, they can’t remember the last time they slept well and soundly without snoring stuffiness or coughing or sneezing or other cold-related misery and they’re tired all the time, and then finally, once they get a chance to rest a bit, they’re hit with the massive cold/flu bug that’s been going around, the worst of the season, and they wake up so sick they’re knocked off their feet entirely, their sinuses a dense, hulking mass, their throat a swollen sandpaper tube against their enormous swollen tonsils and larynx, their ears plugged, their eyes watering, their body shaking under layers of blankets, and the membranes of their poor, inflamed nostrils so irritated and red that any sniffle creates a tickle for an explosion of snot. their immune system is so absolutely shot that it hits worse than it hit anyone else they know who got it (and certainly worse than their partner who gave it to them), and suddenly they’re sick in their dark, quiet bedroom, the humidifier chugging on high, tissues littering the floor, their body begging for the rest and care it needs to feel better. their partner, who was worried about this, finally succeeds in driving them to the doctor, where they’re put on strict bedrest for the next two weeks to recover from the miserable onslaught that’s been their life for the past few months. when they get home and find themselves laid up in bed chock full of antibiotics for all their infections and the heaviest severe cold and flu medicine available, having run the full gauntlet of cold and flu season proper, there’s nothing left to do but sleep.