I feel fuzzy.
I have a cold. Most often, I can dodge colds and the flu. When I’m sick, I can shake it off after two or three days.
Regardless of how long, when I’m sick, I’m not just sick. It’s the “Man-Cold.”
The Man-Cold is a blanket term for men and women who whine like a puppy left in a kennel when they’re sick. Because we’re sick. And it’s icky.
Day one? The Man-Cold crept in:
“Oh, this is how it ends,” I said, followed by a house shaking cough. “I’ll never finish my novel or see the Alamo.”
“You never wanted to see the Alamo,” said my husband.
“That’s not the point.”
On day two, I was convinced there wouldn’t be a day three. Surely, one shouldn’t feel such ickiness. My joints ached. My nose was red. My eyes. Where were my eyes? My sinuses were so puffy, I looked like a hollowed out pumpkin. My throat felt like a cat used my tonsils as a scratching post. I lay on the couch, staring at Pinterest. I’m sure at that point I was delirious with a pending fever. Pinning sewing ideas when I have no idea how to spin a bobbin.
My husband walked into the living, smirking when he saw me. Pumpkin cheeks, red rose, surrounded by a mountain of tissues.
“What do you want for lunch?”
With the last of my energy, I said, “Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, then salmon.”
“Almond butter sandwich. Cut into fours. Crusts cut off … please.”
But I made it to day three. After a night of purring in my husband’s face, which he had the audacity to call, “snoring.” By morning I was a gushy snot pump. Blowing my nose until it was bone dry. The Sahara conditions in the house led to an epic nosebleed of the decade.
In my adult years, my nosebleeds stop within thirty seconds. This time, my nose bleed for fifteen horrifying minutes. It may have been less, but I wasn’t watching the time.
My husband called my mommy and daddy since they were familiar with my childhood and teenaged nosebleeds which resulted in an ER visit. The bleeding stopped thanks to a damp paper towel squeeze. And at that point, I was not having fun.
Post-nosebleed and the sneezes kept coming. I poured through a quarter of box of tissue as I looked for a non-gag temperature app on my phone. To no avail, I dragged my weak body from the TV room to the kitchen, and I checked my temperature with a real thermometer: 99.1. I shuffled to bed.
By day four, my eyes were sensitive to light. My head was pounding. And I was sniffling as though I inhaled a jalapeño. On the upside, my joints were starting to un-ache.
On day five, the Man-Cold is subsiding. While I’m still sniffing, sneezing, I can sleep though the night. I could be in a Buckley’s commercial since my sore throat disappeared. But I’m fighting this cold with tons of tea and enough orange juice to warrant investing in Tropicana.
I’m clearly on the mend.
For lunch, I had an almond butter sandwich cut into fours.
But with the crusts.
____________
Image credit: rebubble.com
Tammy W. Karatchuk 