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Battling the bug that wouldn't leave
Staff Writer It's here. And it doesn't seem to want to leave.
It's in our grocery stores. It's in our classrooms. It's moving about the congregations at our churches on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. And it's swirling about the atmosphere at the bank.
You can't see it. Or smell it. Or touch it. But, oh, you most certainly will feel it. You'll know immediately when it hits you. The crud. The bug. That stuff. Whatever you want to call it. It seems to be a combination chest-cold head-cold and on and off headache sort of thing.
It arrives with periodical chills mixed in with assorted bouts of overheating, a great deal of nose-clearing blows and just when you think you've got it licked it reminds you it's not quite time to feel better just yet.
I received my initial visit from the bug about 24 hours before Santa came. Still, today, long after the New Year's confetti has been gathered and disposed of, it continues to hang on. Other victims swear it's possible to get rid of the thing and then get it back again before you've ever fully recovered. I concur. If you haven't come in contact with it at your house yet, consider yourself lucky. Chances are though, it will make its appearance sooner or later in a sinus or chest cavity near you.
The holidays are nothing more than a blur of Kleenex wads and NyQuil doses at my house. I did manage to muster the energy to engage in most of the required holiday merriness, using it as an excuse to perform only the minimal chores of house cleaning and to forgo most of the holiday decorating.
I did concede to it one night. I know when I've been beaten. It was the week between Christmas and New Year's. We had good friends up for the week and everyone was sprawled about the living room in anticipation of viewing a much-touted holiday video release. Just when the snacks had been gathered, the beverages placed within arm's reach and the beginning music starting to play, I knew I couldn't take it another minute.
I said good night to my guests, gathered my "blankee," my box of tissue, and my heating pad and excused myself to my bedroom. It had drug me down to party-pooper status. If someone at your house hasn't entertained some sort of symptom of it by now, surely the people that surround you at work have.
Here, at the Dispatch, we are no exception. We are a symphony of sneezes and coughs throughout the workday now, followed by throat clearing and the unwrapping of lozenges. We disinfect one another's keyboards, telephone receivers, the buttons on faxes and copy machines and anything else we may have to share. Certain employees are quarantining themselves, remaining at their desks, in hope of remaining unexposed and avoiding the whole thing altogether.
Conversations in the newsroom now usually include some sort of comparison of who is currently at what stage of the thing and some passing observations and opinions on who it was exactly it was that brought it to the rest of us in the first place. I admit, I could have been the culprit.
We're only a few weeks in to a brand new year and already people are having to dip into precious hours of sick time to try to get a leg up on the illness and recoup some of their lost energy.
The aisles of the markets of our city where the over-the-counter medications are stocked have been shopped heavily by those hoping to find the perfect remedy. I've spent time there myself. I've tried the little red pills that promise to open up your breathing passages. I've tried the lemon-flavored powdery substance that dissolves in hot water. I've experimented with the lozenges that promise to shorten the length of the illness (hah!). And I've tested the water (no pun intended), on the tablets you use in the shower that emit nasal cleansing aromas while you bathe. Even a hot toddy one night didn't do the trick, but it did make me a little happier about being sick.
Kleenex is a gotta-have during a bout with the bug. I have used fast-food napkins and miles of toilet paper when I've been in a pinch and quality tissue is just not something you should do without. Get the good stuff. The soft stuff. The stuff with lotion if you can use it. Surely the people at Kimberly Clark, makers of fine tissues and paper products, are smiling.
And Vicks VapoRub? What's not to love? Unless your the spouse of a victim trying to sleep next to them. There seems to be no match for the bug. Both of my daughters have had it. The neighbor had it. It's made its way across the benches of most of the high school sports teams. My husband had some variety of it. Another friend was down and out.
In an effort to combat the enemy I've planned an attack of my own. In the past week I have washed our bed sheets and I have replaced each and every toothbrush in our home (could it really be a good thing, I reasoned, to keep sticking things we've already infected back in daily direct contact with our mouths?) But still it lingers. Each day is a little bit better, though. Today I breathe almost freely. At least through the left nostril.
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