Flu Week Reality

I woke up knowing I was getting sick and did what so many working moms do anyway: I tried to outwork it. Two of my kids already had the flu, my body was starting to ache, and a major deadline still didn’t care. So I pushed through the day, got the priority project out, and then hit the wall hard. If you’ve ever felt that mix of pain, responsibility, and “I can’t let anyone down,” you’ll recognize every beat of this story.

I also talk about the kind of leadership that makes brutal weeks survivable. I’m incredibly grateful for the women I work with and for a boss who rolls up her sleeves, quality-checks the work, and shows up alongside the team instead of above it. That support doesn’t erase the guilt of taking an unscheduled sick day, but it changes everything about how safe it feels to be human at work.

On the practical side, I share what we leaned on at home, including elderberry supplements, Oscillococcinum, and a fresh juice mix with citrus, pineapple, and ginger to support inflammation and recovery. And then I zoom out to the bigger takeaway: sometimes getting sick is a forced full stop when you’ve been run down for too long. What if that pause is information, not just inconvenience?

If this resonates, subscribe to Still Roses Podcast, share the episode with a fellow working mom, and leave a quick review so more women can find these honest conversations.

Transcript

Welcome And A Rough Week

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Hello everybody, this is Still Roses Podcast. This podcast is created for women by women to elevate women's voices. I hope you all are having a great week. I can solidly confirm that I am not. So the whole family, actually, let me rephrase, two-thirds of the kids have flu bait. And I think I think I mentioned it on my prior episode that I posted on Monday. Two kids have the flu. And of course, you're the mom, so you're basically maintaining them in the most in their face. I was taking homeopathic things to try to keep me from getting sick, but I definitely was not diligent enough because I am in so much pain from this particular illness. I have not felt this bad. I mean, it's gotta be at least like since in the last, like, hold on a second. It's been like a couple of years since it since I had COVID. When I had COVID, it was pretty bad. But this is brutal. The body aches, the shivering. Now, I pulled a total move this morning and I was freaking out because I started to feel sick. Now, I already knew it was coming, so I felt it. And I've actually felt the I've felt light symptoms for a couple of days, but that's why I was taking the homeopathic stuff to try to keep it at bay. So today I really started to feel it. Last night, excuse me. Last night I started to really feel it. And today, Tuesday, I really started to feel it in the morning. So, what does a working mom do when she knows illness is coming and she cannot control that? What does she do? She works extra hard. So I was online for the full day, actually, a little bit past the full day for work. I had a pretty large project that, you know, the team was working on over the weekend that needed to go out today. And I was very committed to making sure I stayed there for the team. Now, it might sound nuts. People will say you have to put your health first, you have to take care of yourself. And I absolutely am going to, but I'm also very mindful of the fact that people rely on me. And I'm not the only one who doesn't feel well. I'm not the only one who has things going on personally. Everyone on my team has personal lives and personal views of things that are going on. And I am not one to disrespect that. That's just not who I am as a person. So I'm feeling like garbage and I was like, I need to push through the day. So I started flagging to everybody. I feel really sick. I'm likely gonna take off tomorrow. I'm working today to try to get everything done. And I just kept warning everyone, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. So I I finished the day out and I got the priority thing done that needed to get done. Now, here's the flip of it. I am sick, so I do need to take off, but I also feel awful. Like physically, I feel awful, but I feel awful emotionally because my team is down a couple people already this week due to out of offices that were already prescheduled. Mine is unscheduled because I'm sick, and there are major things happening. Now, I am incredibly grateful to the women that I work with, especially my boss, because she is not one of these people that, you know, reaches a high level in an organization and is like, well, I can't touch that. You guys have to deal with it. She rolls her sleeves right up with everybody else and digs deep to make sure the things happen. This is the example professionally that I think is most beautiful and most amazing. And it's people like that that really make it worth it when you're in those hot seat moments. You know, and case in point, the priority project that I was working on, I couldn't really touch it over the weekend because the kids were all sick and I was starting to feel sick and I was trying to get ahead of it by resting. Didn't work. Um, but the other people that I was working with worked the entire weekend. They made sure that we were in a good enough spot come Monday to continue to advance. And I'm talking like work around the clock. It's a beautiful thing to see. It's very painful to go through. It's exhausting, it's grueling, it's frustrating. Cause you want to just, you know, log out like regular people. But that honestly is just not how our industry is. You have to get it done. There's hard deadlines. There is no, there is no wiggle room. So I am feeling very grateful for the people that I work with. Like sincerely, I could not have picked a better agency to really wrap up my career with. I have no intention of leaving ever. Unless somebody says, Jenny, we want to sponsor your podcast. Then that's a whole different story. But in the professional world, this agency is the tops and these people are amazing. And I would never leave. Now, I do have, um, I do have, again, some guilt because I can't be there for them. But my fantastic boss is stepping up and she really she dug in deep. I was very busy with another project. She dug deep. She made sure that she QC'd things, like she made sure everything looked good. It really just, it really just helped to set the stage for me being able to step back a little bit. Now, it's not that it's not going to be tough. It is gonna be tough over the next couple of days, but again, very grateful for the people that I work with because they are really amazing for that. Now, for the flu, the two things that I've always read about and then this time leaned on was making sure you have elderberry in your house, elderberry supplements. And I can't pronounce it, but you'll know it if I kind of butcher the name. It's usylum, asculum or something to that effect. Again, another homeopathic thing. It looks like little tiny sugar beads in these little vials that you you shoot back. I've been taking, I've been having the kids take that combination. I was taking elderberry proactively, and I start giving it to my other daughter and my husband to try to keep them from getting sick. We'll see what happens. Because now my fear is if the other two get sick, you know, they're getting sick much later and it'll probably wipe out our Easter, which I I really hope doesn't happen because last weekend our plans got wiped out. Now, this doesn't mean that I am not still aligned with the fact that everything happens for a reason. And I've said to a couple of people, because I'm upset, I don't like being sick, I don't like not being there for my team. I don't like my kids being upset because they know that I can't really be there for them. That was like a whole big thing, too. They get they get really emotional when mommy is sick because they know everybody gets upset. Nobody likes it when mommy is sick. So it's just been one of those days, and I've lost my train of thought because I don't feel good. So homeopathic remedies, trying those out. I'd even made fresh squeeze orange juice with grapefruit, pineapple, and ginger. I was trying to keep inflammation up bay. Like, like ladies, I tried very hard to not have to actually be sick, but nevertheless, it is what it is. So I am going to acknowledge the fact that here's the thought that left me before. I'm acknowledging the fact that I have been very run down recently and I have been very frustrated and needing a break. And as annoying as it is that I have the flu because I'm gonna feel like garbage, I've basically been forced to a full stop. What does this say to you? When you're forced to a full stop, you are completely out of alignment with what you're meant to be doing, what your purpose is. Full stop. That's it. I'm being forced into a position where I don't have a choice and I have to slow down. This is, to be honest with you, probably one of the better things that the universe can push at me just to get me to stop. Um, and I do truly, truly believe that everything happens for a reason. I mean, who gets the flu in in April? Who does that? It's so annoying. But anyway, in a nutshell, I'm very sick, trying my best, hopeful that I actually get this episode posted because mama really needs to lay down. So until the next one, I really appreciate all of you. Thank you so much for being here with me and take care. Ugh.