December 11th, 2019

Lucky me.  This is my world right now.  I have the cold that will not die.  

Ricola cough drops are my new best friend.  Probably any cough drop would work but most of them are so sickeningly sweet (and that's coming from me, the sweets fiend!) that it's easy to get sick of them in a relatively short time.  The ricola drops still have a sweetness but it's not overwhelmingly so.  

I think I understand why cough drops are so sweet.  Right now the only "flavour" I can detect at all is either salt or sweet. That's it.  And worse, it's generic salt or sweet. Not, "Oh lemony sweet" or "Chocolately sweet". Nope just sweet.  So you would think that flavour would not matter.  Turns out that it does.

Which brings me to cough & cold medicines.  I had Mucinex  on hand. Ok.  Considering the amount of congestion I am dealing with, Mucinex  - as gross as the name implies - seems reasonable as a choice.  Right up until I took the first dose.   Yuck...cherry.  Of all the flavours in the flavour spectrum, why cherry?  While  I am grateful that I was not able to smell or taste the full fake cherry flavour, I got enough of it to make me gag.    Of all of the fake flavours available, there is only one worse than fake cherry and that is fake banana.  I am delighted beyond measure that it wasn't fake banana.   But still.  The taste is just nasty.  I had to eat a cookie to cancel it out.  And honestly I cannot taste anything in the cookie beyond sweet. But it's enough to get rid of the fake cherry. Horrors.

Even as a kid I didn't like cherry flavouring.  When I had the oppportunity to select a lollypop or a popsicles, I never EVER choose the red ones.  I think anything of it at the time. But as an adult, I did question it.  Turns out,  I like cherries.  I don't like fake cherry flavouring.  

So fine, I cowgirled up.  Despite it's revolting flavour, I am taking my Mucinex with a cookie chaser during the day.  Followed by copious amounts of water and liberal Ricola cough drops throughout the day.  Soup has been administered as well. which merely tastes of hot liquid salt. But hey, it's not fake cherry so that's fine. And the hot liquid salt feels soooo gooood.  Sooothing on my poor ravaged throat.

My days have been filled with chores done very very slowly and lots of breaks and occasional naps.  Mostly they have been passing in a fog.  Day?  What day?  But I still got up, took a shower, and at least attempted to function every day.  Any amount of exertion on my part, up to and including folding the clean laundry set off coughing spasms.  Fun!    Any attempt to talk was just plain silly. Not only did it, again, trigger coughing fits but my voice is...well...ridiculous.  So silence is key. (for the most part.  Sometimes there are things I absolutely have to say like...please come kill the monster bug I just found!)

So the days are covered.  While I haven't exactly been a ball of fire, I'm still very very slowly getting things done.  

But nights, on the other hand, nights are awful.  I cannot breathe lying down.  So I tried to prop myself up.  Which is a huge fail though because I always end up sliding down the pillows until I'm lying down again which of course begins the coughcoughcough.  Because I am a considerate person and despite Tim's insistence that my coughing and sneezing and incessant nose blowing (and, I'm sure, snoring) is not bothering him, I am absolutely certain that it is.  So eventually I made my way to the family room, and propped myself up out there, dosing between coughing fits, watching terrible late night TV and/or the Hallmark channel. I spent several nights coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose and crying at Hallmark Movies.  What a mess!  So after a few nights of that I am not only tired because I'm sick, I am also tired because I'm not sleeping.  Not Good.

Finally, Tim took pity of me and brought home some Robitussin PM to try.  Naturally, it too, is flavoured with fake cherry (gag)  But gamely, I swigged it down and to my surprise, I actually did sleep a little bit.  It's not so much that this PM specific medicine calmed symptoms down enough that it allowed me to sleep.  It's more that it rendered me unconscious.  I went from awake to asleep in about the amount of time it took me to say, "This stuff tastes gross"  Aaaannnnddd...out!

But at that point I didn't care. It somehow wasn't alarming. It was awesome. 

Sleep is a wonderful thing.  Especially when sick.   That's when your body heals. 

Having a cold that is bad enough to stop me in my tracks hasn't happened since I was a child.  This wasn't so much a cold as it was an 18-wheeler.    It was bad enough that I actually napped during the day!  Bad enough that I didn't go to Pilates!  Bad enough that I called out sick from work!  (gasp!)  I never do that!  But I did.  

I can tell that I am slowly, way way tooo slowly for my liking, beginning to improve. Thank goodness!  

For anyone else out there who is getting this nasty germie I say,  Mucinex, Ricola cough drops, lots of soup and water, rest and most especially that Robitussin PM. Man that stuff was amazing!  

Try to stay healthy!