Oh wait I just realized. I spent months conditioning myself to the point that regular, high impact exercise barely affects me anymore. It would logically follow that perhaps when I get sick, provided it's a minor illness, the dip in my energy levels might not be quite perceptible. When I'm sick I turn into a dog hiding under the porch, but that might be because before I had so little energy to start with. Even minor bullshit came with feeling like I had been hit by a truck.
I do feel reluctant to go outside or do anything and I super can't focus despite "feeling" okay and it just hit me that this might be what minor illness feels like when you're otherwise healthy, 4 years on T (so, about 4 years removed from horrible chronic illness symptoms) and six months into regular martial arts. That's a valuable thing to consider because it allows me to better risk assess and makes me less tempted to mask up "just in case" and go do whatever.
Also damn. If this is all correct, a whole lot has changed since the last time I was sick, about 8 months before I started T.
This also means that maybe when people say rest and hydration will help, that's actually true and not a thing they tell you to try and make you feel less dog tired and useless while you can't move over what should be a small cold. Rest and hydration ARE helping. I'm better than I was yesterday and yesterday I was working all day. I just don't think they could mitigate nearly an entire illness before, no matter how minor. And now they actually help and I can tell.