Hi everyone, it’s been a while. This is Aya.

Winter break ended way too fast, and honestly… I’m feeling kind of depressed about it.

How did you all spend your New Year holidays?

As for me, I actually caught the flu during the year-end and New Year holidays.

My precious winter break… gone 😭

When I was a kid, I remembered the flu as something like “a really high fever on the first day, then you start feeling better the next day.”

But maybe because I’m an adult now, this time it was way harder than I expected.

This is how my symptoms went:

Day 1: I started coughing.

Day 2: Coughing and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t get out of bed at all and had no appetite.

Day 3: Headache and fever. Even after taking fever medicine, my temperature kept going back up after a while. I also had bad joint pain and could barely sleep.

Day 4: I woke up around 2 a.m. with a fever and strong joint pain. I took medicine and went back to sleep, and after that my fever didn’t come back. However, my cough was the worst it had been, and it hurt my lungs. My appetite slowly started to return.

It started with a cough, then fatigue, then my fever kept going up and down. Whenever I had a fever, I also had strong joint pain and a sore throat. The first four days were honestly really tough.

Even though it was the end of the year, my parents looked for a hospital and took me there, and I’m so grateful to them and to the doctors who treated me.

Thanks to the medicine, I’m doing much better now and only cough occasionally.

I’m also really thankful to my parents for taking care of me and going grocery shopping for me while I was sick.

When you have the flu and no appetite, a lot of people eat jelly or rice porridge, but personally, I also recommend chawanmushi (steamed egg custard) and tofu pudding.

They’re easy to swallow even when your throat hurts, and eggs are a good source of protein. Chawanmushi is especially nice because you can add different ingredients and get more nutrients.

It’s getting colder and the flu is going around, so please take care of yourselves.

Make sure to wash your hands, gargle, wear a mask, and stay healthy.

See you again!