Flu, Writing, and Weight Loss

Okay, so having the flu and losing a few pounds might be related. But how do they relate to this blog, that is, to writing?

Well, one doesn't expect to be stricken with an extreme and involuntary form of a cleanse. Sure, I didn't have to purchase a Kleanse Kit or follow a recipe for purging my system of toxins near and far. The flu did that for me, complete with fever and narcolepsy. But cleansed I was. No writing was possible. Consciousness was barely achieved.

By the third day (this is not a religious treatise, so don't get your hopes up), I was eating small amounts of gruel and tea. As a woman with legendary appetites in several directions, I know I'm sick when I'm not hungry and I eat a little only because I know I should.

But then I started getting short of breath. Sweated through fevers at night. Coughed prodigiously. One doctor (not my regular one) listened to my lungs and bronchii and declared I was having an asthma flareup, not bronchitis or pneumonia. Hmmph. I was able to work from home for a couple of days, but no creativity emerged.

The next day, the one I weekly devote to writing fiction, I was determined not to let illness stand in the way of accumulating word count on the first draft of the work in progress. Because of the continued night fever, I returned to Holistic Family Practice to get my lungs checked again, this time by my long-time family doctor. Nope, still clear. Okay, so it was aggravated asthma flareup.

In some way this gave me extra energy for writing, now that I knew that my demise was not imminent and, actually, I was apparently not even sick. So let's write! On that day and the following, I moved the story forward by almost 5000 words. Whee!

Oh, the weight loss? Being sick took off about four pounds I'd been unable to shed on my own. Now that I'm finally feeling better after ten days, I'm back on my fast-walk exercise routine and determined to keep them off. But what about today's delivery of my annual ten-box order of Girl Scout cookies? Uh. Umm. Well, the ritual consumption of an entire sleeve of Thin Mints on delivery day has been held to a half sleeve.

And tomorrow is Writing Friday again, wide open for fiction, walking, and self control. What about you? Do you get extra hungry after surviving a stomach flu? Find inspiration for writing during a fever or only aftewards?