Being sick might kill you! Who knew?

This card could, and perhaps should, have been made specifically for me. I am one of the chronic cold sufferers. My mother has been berating me about it for years, blaming my failure to sleep as much as I should and inability to regularly take those really expensive multivitamins she buys for me with her hard earned money, gosh darnit! I don't deny that she's right, but I have little to no control over how much sleep I get (I am an overly committed lady) and I've never established a regimen that involves shoving a pill in my mouth everyday. That's just the beginning of it. I could probably be more vigilant about washing my hands, especially living in New York City where everyone touches things other dirty people touch constantly.

I know I ought to enact some personal reform, but it's been tough to motivate. The colds I get are rarely that bad, even the one I have now is more of an annoyance than a plague. But just the other day I finally found my reason to listen to my mother.

WORK-SICKDAYS
Long sick leave for colds signals poor health later-study
LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Employees off sick for long periods -- even for common conditions like flu -- are far more likely to die before their co-workers who do not take such leave, researchers said on Friday.
The study of government workers included people who were healthy to start with and suggested extended sick leave for minor ailments as well as more major ones could point to serious health problems down the road.
"It is not just down to serious medical conditions but it seems this relationship is seen across a wide range of common health problems," said Jenny Head, a statistician at University College London who led the study.
"This appears to be a good early marker for people going on to develop more long-term serious illnesses."
The results could help doctors and employers identify people at higher risk of serious illness early on and long before they have symptoms, Head added.
The report in the British Medical Journal looked at sickness records of 6,478 British civil servants between 1985 and 1988 and then followed up which men and women died through 2004.
People who were off sick more than seven days were more likely to die, they found. People who took one or more long absence in three years were 66 percent more likely to die, Head said in a telephone interview.
"We also saw that relationship in people who were in good health at the beginning of the study," she added.
While it would make sense that people off for surgery or circulatory problems would face increased odds of dying early, the findings extended to people who had called in sick for minor complaints such as coughs and colds and flu.

That's right. Apparently I'm due to die earlier because of all these colds I get. (Like any good math student I know the difference between causation and correlation, but in this case, correlation is enough for me.) Which makes me think maybe this is the right time to grow up and start taking my mama's advice. So if you're a fellow chronic cougher/sneezer/owner of a runny nose, then I invite you to join me in this quest for fewer colds. Wash those hands, take your vitamins, and for the love of mom try to get some more rest.

Although that being said, I don't actually call out sick that often. I tend to just come to work with the illness, much to the dismay of my colleagues. Maybe that'll save me! Working through the cold, makes you stronger, right? I'll go with that for now. I can always sleep when I'm dead, which may come sooner rather than later!

Oh what the heck, I'll just try to take my vitamins.