Will the sickness EVER end?

I got sick and was down and out of work for nearly a full week at the beginning of February. It was horrid, and it was both occupants of my household who were stricken by this hideous "cold". Believe me "cold" is far too mild a term for this wretched germ that has taken away all normalcy from my life for a MONTH now!
I have tried to be reasonable, but when it took me down at the beginning of March and forced me to miss another 2 days of work, that was it! This nastiness has also given my poor little guy a double ear infection for 4 weeks now. Foul Play! I am praying that this illness leaves me house sooner rather than later. I don't think I can handle much more.
I cough like a goose/80 year old man with emphysema. Definitely not sexy not to mention painful.

I did, however, realize two very important things this week. A) I have almost always viewed illness as some sort of shortcoming, some failure on my part. A weakness. Laugh at me if you like. It is true. I felt as though I had in some way failed my duties as an adult and as a mother to remain healthy and to keep my child healthy. I realize that this feeling stems from two places, 1) my parents do NOT take sick days and being sick was something to get over quickly and to suck up while it was happening. 2) my abusive ex who used to tell me that it was my fault that he was ALWAYS sick ( he got sick far more often than I ever did) and that I was weak for always bringing home every germ and that it was my fault and that if I was a better mother my son wouldn't be sick or have this many ear infections yadda yadda yadda.
I realized these things the other day as I found myself responding defensively to a concerned friend when she sent a message saying poor kiddo I just wish he could get better. Now this is a statement of concern, NOT JUDGMENT and I responded- internally- as though she had just slapped me and said "you shit for brains mom, how could you let your child suffer and stay sick like this? Don't you have any clue what you're doing?"
It was like a slap in the face. A wake up call. It is ok to get sick, it sucks and I hate it and I definitely want to take steps to make better habits and stay healthy more often, but it isn't something I did, or didn't do. It isn't because I have failed and it isn't weakness to catch a bug.
I'm sure most of you read this and think, "duh lady, that's common sense" and you're right it is. It is also a script that I have had to rewrite in my brain because of the messages that I have received repeatedly in my life.

and I think I will save realization B) for another post. It's a doozy. A fabulous wonderful doozy.