That thing that's going around
By Jim Mullen
Posted February 2, 2009
I've got that thing that's going around. And I can't seem to shake it. It's been weeks now. Coughing, sniffling, headaches, sore throat, aches all over. I hope whoever gave it to me still has it. Let the punishment fit the crime. Why can't people stay home when they're sick and suffer in silence, like I do? I'm so considerate, I don't even go to the office when I'm healthy.
Everyone I talk to on the phone tells me same thing: "You sound horrible." They all give me suggestions and advice. "Drink water." "Eat chicken soup." "Drink chamomile tea." "Take a decongestant." "Take a pregnancy test." What?
The one thing no one ever says, "Go see a doctor." Because as we all know, there's no cure for the common cold.
What about an uncommon cold? The one that stays in your body for six weeks and brings friends. It seems there is no cure for that, either. It has moved from my head to my chest and back to my head. What's that old saying? "Feed a cold, starve a fever?" I don't know what that means. I have a cold and a fever. What am I supposed to do? Eat a big breakfast and purge for the rest of the day? It was a tough choice but I decided to feed it. No matter how miserable I felt, I made sure I was never far from a bag of cheese puffs or chips.
Sue had a few silly, New Age, hippie-dippy health suggestions that were so off-the-wall it was hard not to laugh.
"You should watch what you eat, lose some weight and get some exercise out in the fresh air. Then you wouldn't get sick so often." See, now how does that voodoo work? Where she gets these crackpot ideas, I'll never know. I've got a closet full of exercise equipment and it hasn't done a thing for me.
I'm of the "more is better" school. If a bowl of chicken soup is good for you, wouldn't two bowls be really good? If orange juice is full of vitamin C, have two glasses. If one glass of red wine a day is good for you, imagine what a whole bottle will do. If the cough medicine says to take one teaspoon every four hours, then one tablespoon every two hours has got to be better.
But I was so sick, I couldn't keep the cough medicine, the wine, the soup, the OJ and the puffs down. It all came up while I was watching an autopsy on "CSI." I felt even worse. Maybe I was getting a touch of stomach flu on top of a cold. I was much too sick to clean it up.
It's not like I'm Howard Hughes, but I try to take precautions in the winter. I get the flu shot. I use the germ-killing soap. I avoid schoolchildren. But sometimes nothing works. Like I was telling the guys when we were drinking Jell-O shots in Bob's hot tub before I caught this thing, sometimes you can do everything right and still get sick.
