Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Blurgh

I'm sick. A severe winter cold has been making its way through the ward and I am the latest victim. It begins with a sore throat, which I have had since midday yesterday. I hope this is the worst that it gets. When I was a child, I had step throat almost once every three months and since it happened so frequently I have a tendency now, even as an adult, to assume automatically that I've come down with it. As I reflect back upon my past, I think of how frequently I was afflicted with something or other, and how I never managed to have a mild case of much of anything. For example, when I came down with the chicken pox when I was seven, I was so ill that I missed two solid weeks of school and very nearly had to be hospitalized.

As a result, I hate hate hate being ill. Ever since I quit smoking a year and a half ago, began exercising daily, drank lots of water, and starting treating my body better overall it has been several months since I have been physically sick. The good thing about doing all of those things is that even if I do come down with something (which we all do at some point, no matter how judiciously we follow a healthy regimen) the symptoms are much milder and the duration is lessened considerably. By contrast, when I was still up to my old ways, I remember a trip to Boston in the the late winter, whereby I picked up a nasty case of the flu, and infected almost all of my graduate school classmates.

I'll feel better with time and rest, which are, of course, the only real ways to treat a cold.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I took my wife in to the doc yesterday for strep and she's on antibiotics now. Oddly enough, even though she gets strep every few years, I have yet to come down with it. My doc says it's because i grew up on a farm and developed a lot of immunities in my childhood that younger people don't get anymore because of antibacterial soaps, etc. Back then, we got sick, our bodies adjusted and we moved on. Today it's all about cleanliness and prevention. In the early '60s we we lucky if we got more than one bath a week on the farm. Oh well.

BTW, I dropped in to let you know I have added a discussion board for the Blogger Album Project.  Feel free to use the board to discuss your favorite cuts off your album choices, selections that came close to making your list, selections others made, etc.

Gail said...

Hi Kevin-

Sorry to hear you have a cold. :-( And yes, fluids and rest. lots!

I enjoy your 'made-up' words. "Blurgh" is as perfect as "gah", (I have used 'gah', as you know).

Get well soon.

Love,
Gail
peace....

Anonymous said...

Ick. We seem to have a never-ending cycle of crud going through our house this fall. And I am not a pleasant sick person.

I hope you're better soon.

Utah Savage said...

I too used to get sick a lot. Strep throat was a common feature of my youth as well. The only changes I've made in my life style is to isolate. I all but wear a mask to shop, and the first think I do when I walk in the house from the grocery store is to wash my hands.

But since my mother died I have been stunningly healthy. It's been three years this Christmas morning that she died. And this week is the first week I actually feel as if I'm coming down with something flu like. Headache I can't quite get rid of, slight fever, aches in my shoulders and neck. And I feel like doing absolutely nothing.

I smoke like a chimney, but never get an upper respiratory infection, no sinus infections, no colds. And yet, all my non smoking friends are constantly sick with these ailments. Go figure.

Batocchio said...

Feel better!