Being Sick Sucks — But There Can Be Big Benefits

Maryanne Pope
2 min readNov 17, 2022

(Such as facing an uncomfortable truth about thy self…or thy strategy)

“’Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

Indeed. But healthy or not, being sick still sucks.

In early September I went to Cancun, Mexico for a friend’s wedding and two days into my trip, I caught The Bug of All Bugs and Happy Vacation Me morphed into Sickly Sleeping Me.

Whatever virus I caught (I tested negative for Covid) certainly took its sweet time working its way through my system, manifesting in my body via all sorts of sexy symptoms…relentless cough, fever, sore throat, exhaustion, pink eye, thrush, no taste, no smell, no voice, no hearing in one ear. Ugh!

It took more than a month for me to feel myself again.

Apparently, getting sick is a sign of health.

“A strong, healthy body is responsive,” says Clinical Nutritionist, Sharon Browne. “When you experience a cough, a runny nose, achiness, or a fever, these are signs that your body has detected a pathogenic (harmful) invader and it is responding. Each of these is a mechanism that your body has evolved to fight infection. For example, a sneeze is the body’s way of expelling, or, pushing out, an irritant.”

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Maryanne Pope

Maryanne writes blogs, books, screenplays & play scripts. She is CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions & Co-Founder of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund.