Jetlag & Hacking Cough

I passed my 1st day at work in a semi-comatose state due to jet-lag and a fair amount of exhaustion from all the hacking cough wracking through my body. Unfortunately, I didn’t even make any sort of dent in clearing my 2-months worth of office emails as there were a number of people who dropped by or whom I met along the office corridor to chat on all that’s happened while I was away.

A number of my colleagues were surprised to see my pregnancy bump as I wasn’t really showing at my 4th month when I left for the US. Most were actually surprised when I told them that I was at the start of my 7th month of pregnancy and commented that I was quite compact for my time. A few speculated that Baby could be a boy since I was carrying with a narrow and sharp belly. Hmmm… only time will tell if their predictions are right.

At 5.45 pm, I decided to call it a day at work and go home earlier to get some rest since my chest was aching from all the coughing that started in the afternoon. The good news is that my gynae had prescribed me with antibiotics and medication for my cough that I could ingest knowing that was safe for pregnant women. The flip side was that the antibiotics didn’t seem to work its usual magic and I was still wracked with coughs and tossing and turning in my bed on my 2nd night back in Singapore.

On my supposedly 2nd day of work, I had to call in for MC and head to my GP in the hope of alternative medication and some bed rest. My GP told me that the medication prescribed by my gynae was top of the line and were highly effective to treat cough. He deduced that my cough could be a viral infection that could not be treated by antibiotics. Nonetheless, he gave me 2 other medication that I could interchange, one of which could cause drowsiness. I had requested for that in the hope that it could result in some drug-induced sleep to combat my other problem – jetlag.

Certainly, pregnancy does exert its toll on the body and its not what it once used to be. Pre-pregnancy, jetlag would typically mean that I culd sleep but end up waking early in the morning. Now, I had no problems going to sleep at night, but I would wake up after 2-3 hours and then spent the remaining time staring up at the ceiling only to fall asleep only at dawn. From the flying experiences over the last 2 months, I know it would take me some 1 week or so before the body adjusts.

That wouldn’t have been a problem apart from the fact that I needed to get to work in the morning. This means that I only catch about 5 hours of sleep each night till the body adjusts to the time difference.

I guess that means that I would be staggering to work, blurry-eye for the next 1 week. Geez, I hope my bosses and colleagues would be patient till I get back into the swing of things *fingers crossed*.