Communication in Time of Illness

Being sick adversely affects communication.

People have a hard enough time understanding me under normal circumstances. Pitch my voice down, reduce the decibels, and people really can't understand me. Yesterday I was leaving school and saw one of my professors (dialogue has been recreated with questionable accuracy, but you'll get the main idea). "Hi, Claire." "Hi, Dr. --." "How are you doing?" "Oh, okay," (said in a low and croaking manner). "What?" "I'm all right." Professor looks at me with kindness/possible concern but lack of recognition on his face. "I'm sick, that's why you can't understand me."

That leads to another issue - it's depressing and not very delightful to say "I'm sick" - and yet I don't want to lie. So I've tried a couple other things: "Oh, I'm surviving." "It'll be better in a few days." "I'm doing."

Those methods don't always work. I've received comments like "You're only surviving?" or "Oh, do you have tests these days?" and then I end up saying after all that I am sick.

Any good ideas for my predicament?