Sick enough that I the person who only uses antibiotics as an absolute last resort (I don't like using them because they are the micro-biological equivalent of a nuke, killing everything both the bad and the good, plus the risk of use when not needed leading to increased chances of superbacteria immune to them) rushed to the doctor and was prescribed two antibiotics.
It's not like I'm actually miserable.
I have a swollen, sore throat, and my cough is frequent yet dry-because-it's-trying-to-be-wet-but-isn't, but this is an annoyance at worst. I don't have any symptoms in my head aside from the throat; it's mostly in the chest. But I can just tell that this is a bad sickness, off of feeling.
I don't get this feeling for a normal cold.
Sure enough the doctor took a look at me. With me having come back negative for strep throat, at first the doctor thought it might be viral due to the sore throat...until the doctor actually started the examination. I described the nature of the cough, I described the feeling of gunk in my chest, I described what I could feel in me, and after listening to my breathing (not to mention, perfectly timed, hearing my cough), the doctor surmised that it was high enough a probability of bacterial to take those extreme measures.
I am, after all, still recovering (and not recovering well) from months of Vitamin B12 deficiency.
The initial diagnosis, they called pneumonitis. Which I suspect was a mixture of the Vitamin B12 symptoms in. But I am treating it, aggressively, because this is something I need to stay on top of.
I normally hate taking antibiotics, sure. But when I was hit by this sickness, there was just a level of intuitive panic to it. This was not something that I feared off of rational reasoning; there was a deep-seated feeling that this was wrong and very very dangerous to leave untreated. Rationality happened to back that up, sure--I am recovering from Vitamin B12 deficiency, so it makes sense that if I get sick with an actual sickness, the effects on my body are going to be far more dangerous than normal.
But that level of fear was something which I knew I needed to listen to. Because it was scary. I am vulnerable right now, and having what I frankly suspect is a triple-hit of the B12 deficiency, a viral infection, and a bacterial infection (at least that's my hypothesis) is something which if I tried to "tough it out", could potentially have literally killed me.
So treating it's the best option.