Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey English learners, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 230 of The Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're doing well today.
I hope that you're feeling healthy.
I say that because in today's episode I want to talk about getting sick, and the reason why I want to talk about this is because a couple weeks ago, my whole family got sick.
Both of my kids, my wife, myself.
So that was not fun.
But this is a good topic to talk about, especially because you'll probably learn some good vocabulary in this episode.
I don't think I've talked a lot about sicknesses in other episodes, so this one will probably be a helpful one for you, because we're We all get sick from time to time, and it's good to be able to talk about this in English.
So that's what we'll focus on today.
Remember that you can access my advanced online We'll see you next time.
You need to get your ears accustomed to real English spoken fast.
That's how you'll improve your listening.
So the link to sign up for those is down below.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast.
It's a really fun podcast in which I talk to different English teachers from all around the US.
You learn a lot about the different cities and states in different regions of the country.
It's a lot of fun.
It's great practice for your listening because these are authentic conversations at full speed.
And of course, I provide the transcript for you with the definitions of key words and phrases.
And if you want to start speaking English, this is a great place to find an English teacher.
You can listen to these episodes, you can see who you like, whose personality you like, who you can understand well, and you can take a class with them.
They're all online English teachers.
Okay?
So check that out.
That link is down below.
Alright, let's talk about getting sick.
Not a fun topic, but a necessary one.
So a couple weeks ago, my son got sick.
He was the first one.
And he started throwing up, meaning vomiting.
He vomited on me, actually.
If you're a parent, you might have already had this experience before, where your young children throw up on you.
It's not fun, but it's part of being a parent.
He threw up like three times in a few hours, I think, over the span of just... three or four hours.
When we say over the span of, we're saying within this specific amount of time.
So over the span of a few hours, he threw up three times.
He threw up on me.
He was clearly sick and I had to go buy an electrolyte drink to hydrate him, because he, of course, couldn't really consume a lot of food or drinks and I've wanted to prevent him from dehydrating, So that was not a good day.
There was a lot of cleanup.
My wife specifically had to clean different parts of the house and I had to sleep next to my son Because that night he also threw up a couple times in his bed and I wanted to be there with him to comfort him.
So it was hard.
And then I got sick after that.
I fortunately didn't have terrible stomach issues.
But I had a high fever.
I was really weak.
And thankfully, my sickness was the mildest.
Something that's mild means that it's not extreme, right?
So even though I had a fever and I was weak, my sickness did not last long.
It was relatively mild.
And then my daughter got sick next and she threw up a lot.
It was very hard to watch because she's just a young girl and it's not easy.
To see your baby sick and throwing up.
And she was pretty bad for I think a day and a half maybe or two days.
And that was hard.
Then unfortunately, my wife got sick and she was bad for a day and a half maybe, and it was a really hard time for the whole family.
So let me talk about some different symptoms that you might have from different sicknesses.
This will be A very educational episode, like I said.
Hopefully by the end of it you will be able to talk about getting sick and how you feel and your symptoms.
And hopefully, you don't get sick often.
So one symptom that I absolutely hate is having a sore throat.
A sore throat means that your throat hurts, it burns, it's uncomfortable.
This is one of the worst things when you have a really sore throat.
That burning sensation is just awful.
And especially when you have to cough. and it hurts really bad, just a cough.
Oh man, I hate just thinking about it.
I know that most of you know what I'm talking about here.
Fortunately, there are ways to soothe this.
One thing that I like to do is to take a spoon full of honey And lemon or lime juice.
That's kind of like a natural remedy, a remedy, something that makes a situation better or a pain better.
And of course, there are different lozenges, as we call them, or cough drops, these things that you can suck on.
You put them in your mouth and your saliva breaks it down.
You suck on it and it makes your throat feel better.
But this is one of the most painful symptoms when you have a bad flu or cold or virus or whatever.
I do not like having a sore throat.
Another symptom that is related to this is having a cough.
And this can also be really bad.
There are different types of coughs.
Sometimes you have a dry cough, meaning nothing comes up from your throat.
You just cough.
And this is often really painful.
It can make your throat hurt and burn.
And I know that many of you have had the experience before where You're sick, your throat hurts and you need to cough, and you already know that it's going to be painful for you to cough.
You don't look forward to coughing, but you have this feeling dry cough that is super irritating or painful.
That's not good, and Sometimes the cough is productive, meaning it brings up mucus or phlegm, these bodily fluids that you have in your throat or mouth.
And that's not fun, either coughing up mucus especially, and needing to spit that out hopefully, or sometimes there's nowhere to spit it out.
It's gross, of course, but that happens to all of us.
And yeah, a cough can be painful.
It can accompany a sore throat, meaning it can goes with a sore throat.
That's common to have both together.
So a cough is one of those symptoms that everyone hates and It's a symptom that you don't like having in public.
It's hard to stop yourself from coughing.
But when I'm in public and I have a cough, I try to be as discreet as possible, meaning I try to cough in in the least noticeable way.
Because when someone is coughing in public, everyone around that person looks at them and wants to be far away from them, and they can even sometimes get irritated with that person, like why are you in public?
You're gonna get me sick.
But sometimes you can't avoid it.
You have to go out and do things even though you have a cough.
So That's not a fun one.
Another symptom that used to happen to me a lot and it still happens to me, but less frequently, thankfully is losing your voice.
I used to lose my voice all the time when I got sick, mainly because I overused my voice.
At that time, I taught many classes online for hours and hours.
And when your voice is weak and you're sick and you have to teach English, This is a good recipe for losing your voice.
Teaching English is different from just talking.
As an English teacher, You have to open your mouth more, exaggerate the sounds more, use your throat more.
And so this puts a lot of stress on your body when you have a sore throat, and it can cause you to lose your voice.
That happened to me a lot in the past.
I had to cancel my classes and it would take me days to fully recover my voice.
It seriously affects your life.
It affects your day to day activities.
I hate losing my voice.
It still happens to me sometimes.
I am prone to losing my voice, meaning I am vulnerable to this.
It happens to me easily.
Thankfully, not like the past.
It's better now, but I still lose my voice from time to time or maybe I don't lose it completely, but it gets weak.
The last time I lost my voice and it was really bad, was two Christmases ago.
I remember spending Christmas of 2023 without my voice or with a very weak voice.
That was the last time that it was really bad.
Thankfully, since then, I haven't lost my voice fully.
Hopefully, you don't have to deal with that.
But if you're a teacher, especially an English teacher or a language teacher, this can happen a lot.
So that's another one.
Another symptom is a runny nose.
This is not necessarily a painful one but it is a very annoying one.
When mucus keeps dripping out of your nose and you have to sniff where you do that, you suck the air in through your nose and you have to blow your nose with a tissue or and you use so many tissues throughout the day to blow your nose and wipe your nose.
Again, This isn't painful, but it's really irritating.
It's really annoying to constantly have this stuff running out of your nose.
And oftentimes it is just nonstop.
You have to have a box of tissues right next to you.
And if you're a language teacher like me, this can be really annoying if you're trying to give classes with a runny nose.
So it's not the worst symptom, in my opinion, but it's annoying still.
That's another one.
Congestion, this is a related symptom.
This is where you have a blockage in your nose. like you can't breathe well through your nose.
You feel like you have to breathe more through your mouth.
This can make it hard to sleep.
If you have congestion, you probably can't sleep as well.
You will probably breathe through your mouth.
It will make it harder to stay asleep probably.
It changes your voice, of course.
There have been many episodes that I've recorded with a little congestion, and oftentimes I record like two or three episodes in a row.
So if I record on a day that I have some congestion, then the next two or three episodes you'll be able to hear me congested with that change in my voice.
Your voice sounds funny because you can't get the proper air through your nose.
So that's kind of a funny thing that happens.
And you can't taste food as well.
Thankfully, this doesn't really happen to me that much, even when I'm sick and I'm congested.
I still feel like I can taste food pretty well.
There have been a few occasions where I lost some sense of taste.
But overall, I think that I'm less affected by this than the average person.
My wife is affected by this.
When she gets sick, she can't taste food.
Well, i would hate that because i love tasting food, so that can be very annoying okay, another symptom this can be a horrible one is headaches, so Thankfully this does not happen to me that often.
Of course, some sicknesses cause headaches for me, but I don't usually have to deal with horrible headaches.
I know other people do have that symptom more for different reasons on different occasions.
And this can be one of the most painful symptoms.
For some people, it is the most painful one.
It hurts so much, it makes it hard to do anything.
You don't even want to stand or do basic things because of how much your head hurts.
There isn't really a whole lot you can do when you have a bad headache.
Of course people take things or medications to try to feel better, but I don't have that much to say about headaches other than they're terrible.
I am glad I don't deal with headaches very often because when I do it's one of the worst symptoms.
I don't like headaches. and a related one perhaps can be having a fever.
This is a terrible feeling.
This is one of The symptoms that just makes doing basic things almost impossible in some cases.
Like you feel like you're going to pass out or faint. meaning you lose consciousness.
So when you have a high fever, you can't even function.
Like your body, your brain, You just can't do basic things.
And if you try to do too much, you might faint.
So life comes to a halt when you have a high fever.
When something comes to a halt it means that it stops, it pauses.
When I have a fever I don't do anything.
I lie down, I try to sleep, I try to rest and even that can be hard with a fever.
And when you have a fever, oftentimes you get chills, like suddenly your body feels cold and you're shivering, and then you try to get warm and then you feel really hot.
Having a fever is one of the hardest symptoms to deal with.
It feels terrible and you just can't do much.
If you have a runny nose or congestion, you can still live your life pretty normally.
When you have a fever, you can't do this the same way.
Your life really comes to a halt.
Unless the fever is not that bad and it's just a low-grade fever, as we call it, then you might not have that many issues.
But if your fever is high, then it's hard to do anything.
And lastly, let me talk about vomiting and diarrhea.
These things are terrible.
Stomach sicknesses are awful.
For me personally, vomiting is perhaps the worst symptom of all.
The good thing is that It passes, like once you vomit, then you feel better.
It's not like a fever that just lasts for hours, but the actual act of needing to vomit and vomiting is terrible.
For me, this is probably the worst symptom.
I won't get too graphic here, meaning I won't go into detail about all the gross stuff related to that.
But stomach issues are really hard to deal with because you get sudden urges, like you just suddenly feel really bad, and it's less predictable.
I think when you have a fever, a headache, a sore throat, the day is kind of predictable.
You know what symptoms you're dealing with.
You might be able to do certain things or go to certain places, but when you have a stomach illness or You have to be really careful about going out and doing things like you normally would because, like I said, you can suddenly start feeling really bad and you have the urge to go to the bathroom or vomit, and this is not something you can always do easily in public.
So for me, when I have stomach sicknesses, that probably means that I'm going to stay close to home that day.
And hopefully it passes quickly.
Oftentimes it's just like a 24 hour sickness.
So thankfully it usually doesn't last many days.
Sometimes it can.
That is terrible.
But at least for me, usually nowadays when I have stomach issues, I am probably better the next day.
So this is one of the worst types of sicknesses.
Seeing my kids with stomach illnesses recently was awful.
It was not easy as a parent.
But we all deal with this from time to time.
And lastly, just talking about medication, I don't take medication for common illnesses.
I do some natural things like natural remedies, honey, like I mentioned.
Propolis is another one.
But I usually just ride it out. meaning I just allow the hard period to pass and I don't do much.
And my sicknesses don't tend to be too intense.
I would say, so it's okay.
I know other people who absolutely need to take medication when they feel sick.
I am not one of those people.
I prefer to just use natural remedies or ride it out without doing much.
But of course, depending on your level of pain, this may or may not be possible or advisable.
So when I have these illnesses, these symptoms, I usually don't do much for them and I hope and pray that they pass quickly, and they usually do.
So I usually don't struggle too much with these different things.
All right, I hope this episode was interesting and educational for you, and I know it was good practice for your listening.
But many of you honestly need to start using my advanced podcast episodes so that you can become accustomed to real English spoken at normal speed.
So the link to sign up for those is down below.
Check that out.
And check out my U.S.
Conversations podcast so you can start practicing listening to my conversations with other English teachers.
This is an essential skill that you will eventually need.
You need to be able to understand when more than one person is talking.
So that's a great tool for that.
And you can also find an English teacher.
I talk to a lot of interesting English teachers from different parts of the US, and so you can listen to those episodes, see who you like, see who you can understand and take a class with them.
So that link is also down below.
Thank you all for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
