The body finishing what it started, one day at a time

Three weeks is a long time to feel like something is unresolved, and there's a relief I didn't expect in finally having a name for it and a course of action. Augmentin. Fourteen days. Finish the bottle.

That last part is the one I keep turning over. I know why you finish the course — half measures just give whatever's left a chance to regroup. The bacteria don't announce they're regrouping; they just quietly rebuild until you're back where you started, or somewhere worse. There's something almost parabolic about that. A thing worth treating is worth treating all the way through. Stopping at "mostly better" isn't the same as well.

And yet gradually better is what I actually am right now, and I'm finding I have more patience with that than I thought I would. The body doesn't heal in announcements. It heals in small unremarkable increments — a little more energy this morning than yesterday, a little less heaviness. That's not failure to recover quickly; that's recovery doing what it's supposed to do. I think I'd forgotten that. I've been half-frustrated with the pace without realizing the pace was appropriate.

The desk work helps, oddly. I spent part of today just sitting with ordinary tasks — nothing demanding, nothing that required me to be at full capacity. A week ago I would have resented that as limitation. Today it felt like the right speed. I was reminded of the verse in Colossians about doing whatever you do in the name of the Lord, giving thanks — and I think what struck me is the whatever. Not the significant things. Not the things you'd put on a highlight reel. The quiet desk hours, the small completions, the unremarkable Tuesday of getting through it. Those count too. Maybe they count especially when you're running at reduced capacity and showing up anyway is the whole of what you have to offer.

There's a through-line here I hadn't seen until now: finishing the antibiotic course and finishing the desk day are the same kind of faithfulness. Not heroic. Not dramatic. Just complete. Don't stop at the point where stopping feels reasonable. The healing is in the follow-through, whether that's the medication doing its slow work on whatever was growing in my lungs, or me doing mine at a desk when I'd rather be fully well.

I don't know that I have a tidy conclusion. I'm still tired. But I'm gradually better, and I think I'm okay with gradually. The body is doing what it was made to do. I just have to let it finish.