Being Sick

It looks pretty under a microscope doesn't it? The spores you see floating above is what the common cold looks like to scientists.

This is what it really looks like when you have it. Not quite as pretty is it?

About nine days ago I was watching the first Sunday night of the Olympics and I felt a slight itch in my throat and that led to a small cough. I knew I was getting sick and there was not a damn thing I could do to stop it.

For those of you that don't know me I should tell you that I am not a good patient for two reasons. First, I'm a man so I can take fourteen stitches in my forehead and return to the ice to finish a hockey game but if I have the sniffles it brings me to my knees. Second, I hate being not in control and when you are sick you lose the ability to make decisions.

I didn't say anything to Linda because I was hoping it was just allergies. Monday morning I woke up and it was definitely not allergies, I had a cold. I was coughing up pieces of my lung but I soldiered on getting cleaned up to go to the doctors appointment I conveniently had that morning where I was sure almost a doctor Kelly would give me something to clear this up.

Turns out once she saw me masked up for her protection, she raced out of the room to get one for herself to double the protection. "What can I do?" I asked. "Don't kiss anyone." She offered. Funny girl.

I laid around most of the day, had lunch, and thought this wasn't going to be as bad as I thought. Around six o'clock I decided to take some NyQuil to help with the cough and congestion and maybe it will help me sleep too. I went to bed within fifteen minutes of taking it and the next thing I remember is that it was three o'clock Tuesday afternoon and I had just slept for twenty one hours. Shockingly I felt like shit.

Over the next four days I had a rollercoaster of feelings. I went from feeling pretty good to wishing I would just feel a tiny bit better so that I could climb up to death's doorstep from whatever hell I was in.

Most of us know the list of simple things we can do to prevent the spread of the cold as this chart shows above. I of course did none of those and by Thursday I had given it to Linda. As she glared at me through red puffy eyes I decided to keep a low profile around her and made sure to not have my back facing in her direction.

The inside of my nose feels like there has been a major mining operation going on in it and the heaviness of my chest from coughing up things nobody should ever have to see is only out annoyed by the wheezing I hear when I try to go to sleep at night. Even the dog is slapping me upside my head at night now because it is keeping her awake and she is deaf.

I remember reading something when I was younger that the common cold takes ten days to run through your system and there is nothing you can do about it. You just let it run its course. I also remember reading you should starve a cold and feed a fever and starving the cold was easy because I was not hungry. I got a nice head start on losing about five pounds that will immediately come back on and drag two or three more with it by the weekend.

I still have some minor congestion this morning but it feels like I'm finally on the ass end of this stupid cold. When I travelled for a living I never got sick. I think it was because I was around so many different types of people with germs that my immune system kept me from getting sick but made me the perfect vessel to be a carrier of germs and disease. I liked that guy better.

We have had to put off several social events for fear of both infecting those we would be with and mostly because we felt like satan's sneakers, if he didn't wear socks. It turns out that when you aren't in your twenties any longer it takes a bit longer to recover from illnesses. While seventy might be the new fifty, it is still seventy and not twenty and the body doesn't fight back like it used to.

We are both getting better, not that anyone really cares as long as they aren't sick themselves, and we will be back at it in a few days. Luckily the Olympics have been a nice diversion for us and gave us something to do as we laid around on couches coughing and hacking and going through five boxes of Kleenex.

I think I can finally see death's doorstep from here.