I've been sick since last weekend, almost a full week of phlegm and night sweats. I'm good at many things, darning socks and making painful small talk among them, but I'm awful at being sick. I don't have cute sniffly moments on the couch as I picture Meg Ryan might, her used Kleenex irritatingly hitting the garbage can on the first try. Instead, my coffee table looks like something out of MASH, a smattering of pills and cherry liquids and tissues. It isn't pretty, and neither am I. The lack of attention to my appearance has decreased steadily since this whole episode began, beginning last weekend with caring not that my hair was a matted mess each day, to Monday denial that Sunday's mascara was still on at noon, to today, when I stomped on all of Mom's teachings and quite possibly her heart and went braless to the CVS. It wasn't the hot type of braless, either, the kind that goes with extra salt margaritas and a spaghetti-strapped tank top and a tropical climate, but the variety that comes with a jar of vapo rub and a brain that actually considers using tampons to stop a runny nose once and for all.
If this keeps up, I may lose my summer weight more quickly than planned, unless God and Oprah play a cruel joke on me by injecting Crisco into the gallons of broth I've been chugging. Today alone I've consumed three cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, which as far as I'm concerned is the only tolerable chicken soup in the world wide universe, what with its limp noodles and celebrated absence of carrots and celery. Not to mention that Mr. Campbell at some point sold his soul or body for the lion's share of the world's available sodium, and I want to full on make out with him for it. I've also had four 20-ounce Diet Cokes in the five hours I've been awake, despite the fact that I can neither taste them nor enjoy their carbonation without layers of my throat peeling off. I'm not fully convinced that that new Diet Coke with Vitamins doesn't contain some form of lye and possibly an unstable element or two, but at least the singe is a distraction from Judges Judy and Joe Brown. And, unlike the prescription I unsuccessfully battled for this evening at CVS, I'm guessing insurance might actually cover a good radium burn.
If this keeps up, I may lose my summer weight more quickly than planned, unless God and Oprah play a cruel joke on me by injecting Crisco into the gallons of broth I've been chugging. Today alone I've consumed three cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, which as far as I'm concerned is the only tolerable chicken soup in the world wide universe, what with its limp noodles and celebrated absence of carrots and celery. Not to mention that Mr. Campbell at some point sold his soul or body for the lion's share of the world's available sodium, and I want to full on make out with him for it. I've also had four 20-ounce Diet Cokes in the five hours I've been awake, despite the fact that I can neither taste them nor enjoy their carbonation without layers of my throat peeling off. I'm not fully convinced that that new Diet Coke with Vitamins doesn't contain some form of lye and possibly an unstable element or two, but at least the singe is a distraction from Judges Judy and Joe Brown. And, unlike the prescription I unsuccessfully battled for this evening at CVS, I'm guessing insurance might actually cover a good radium burn.
31 Comments:
Last night, I considered tampons myself. Three boxes of Kleenex later...
Aww pookie!! I'm sorry.
Tampons are a brilliant idea.
And I agree re: Campbells. I HATE cooked carrots almost as much as I hate when the sticky part of the panty liner gets stuck to the nether hair and you don't discover that until you unknowingly give yourself a brazillian in the ladies room at work.
Speaking of which...
Feel better my friend!!
Oh man, this time of year SUCKS. Lots of people are sick. I prefer Lipton Chicken Noodle myself, but that's the way I was raised. Do you at least live in a state where you can still buy Sudafed? Here in Oregon we need a prescription, which I never think to get in case of emergency...
Feel better fast, please! Oh, and by the way, the nose tampon sounds like a BRILLIANT new invention. Get on it!
It's going around my house, but so far... *knocks on wood*
But one of my cats is sick and I'm really more concerned about her than the other humans who live here.
Does this mean that I can't smoosh and love on you next week?? SAD.
The Visual of you, sitting on the couch with two trampons in your nose, watching TV is much funnier than the shower door-flailing boobs! It Sucks to be sick, especially in Winter. Take as many Naps as you need. Rest gets you better. and Antibiotics. and a vacation.
I meant Tampons!
I hate getting sick because the really soft Puffs are like four bux a box...smart to use tampons. Feel better soon. Even though I am a foodie, I do love the instant lipton soup with just limp noodles and broth. Its soothing!
that's a nasty one going around- i'm sorry you're infected. :( rest, rest and drink lots of liquids!
HOLY MOTHER. That is me at this exact moment....Sickness crept up on me like a fucking ninja and is trying to ruin my life for at least a week. I suggest a nice smoothie, or a shake. Screw soup, I think the numbing of the cold works a bit better....and I feel way less guilty drinking a shake when i'm sick. So, rest, drink water...and i'm virtually sending you your choice from Dairy Queen.
Diet Coke with Vitamins is WONDERFUL, and since it has vitamins, it will help you get better.
Also Jell-O. Jell-O cures everything. Especially the red kinds.
I agree with Jordan, jell-o is the bomb when you're sick.
But 2 words that will cure you, no doubt: Hot Toddy. Works wonders with a cold. Seriously.
Sounds like you're having a good week.
Remind me to never get you to write my Eulogy.
;)
Hope you feel better soon. Try Mucinex, breaks up the gunk manufactured by one's nose.
What? No shout-outs for dry toast and tepid tea? That's what the dorm parents handed out to us when we were sick. That and 7-up with sugar. Like 7-Up needs more sugar.
I'm sorry you're so miserably sick. I won't freak you out by telling you about this deadly cold virus that's circling the nation ......
Feel better!
Mmm Mmm Campbell's. You can eat that soup with a straw. Drink? Peh! Consume it.
Also, I like to recommend Benadryl. Kicks butt and knocks us out! Makes the day go by quickly as well.
Feel bettah!
I'm not feeling well either, but you clearly win the prize.
Braless--brilliant.
Feel better.
hugs
When I was sick as a kid, my mom would make me a milkshake with a raw egg in it. Couldn't taste the raw egg, so I didn't get the point. I do suggest you forgo the egg, but the milkshake might cheer you up!
I go braless at any available opportunity, sick or unsick.
When sick I can often be found applying chap stick to my nose between kleenex swipes. Helps with the soreness. Vaseline works well too.
I hope you get well soon! Being sick really does suck.
Oh, Baby! You've got this HellaCold, too? It's a nastynasty, for sure. Fatigue and copious snot are my two main symptoms and only sleep, broth and generic red nyquil bring relief. I say throw some Benadryl on top of the nyquil and you'll get the rest you need. Make sure that before you do that, though, you call and tell a friend to check on you to make sure you don't OD.
For daytime hot relief: squeeze a lemon or orange wedge in a mug with an inch of peeled ginger root, a spoonful of honey and some water. Microwave. Enjoy.
Also nice with bourbon.
Feel better!
I hate oprah with all of my being, hate, hate, hate
I agree with the choice of Campbells Chicken noodle soup it is by far the best in the world! I called them and they told me that the stock is the same that is sold in the Swansons Chicken Stock box, but they don't sell it here so it was a worthless point, but feel better!
Mama, Jorge was kind enough to bring a cold home to little J (and subsequently, me). However, little J has yet to learn the concept of blowing her nose. So, do you know what I get to do? Suck that shit right outta there with an aspirator-snot-sucking-bulb-thingy.
Good times, my friend. Good times.
Kris, I had this disease for a month, diagnosed as viral bronchitis, a disease they could name after me. One day after returning from work exhausted I realized that, that day, my job had been to cough, to expel mucus from my bronchae. Just sleep a lot and get a vaporizer. Take care. p.s. have loved your blog for over a year and, per new years resolution, am submitting first comment.
Thank you for not posting any photos of yourself in your infected state. I mean, I'm sure that you're an attractive woman and all, but I just don't need to see anybody with chunky snot pooling out the bottom of their nostrils. That's just too much to ask of anybody, however braless they may be.
Ugh, that's the worst. Hope you feel better!!
Stop by sometime if you're sick and bored at home. :)
I think I'm finally getting over a bit of a cold I've had for about a week. You know what worked to open up my clogged nose (better than Sudafed PE)? A little exercise. Nothing too strenuous, but when I had a little energy, I decided to try to sweat it out. It worked like a charm.
You know in movies when people are being held captive and they have their mouths duct-taped? I always wondered what would happen if the person had a really bad cold that day and they couldn't breathe. Now I know--adrenaline seems to open up the nasal passages.
Hope you're feeling better.
feel better (
Awww, feel better soon, hun :( Can't wait to volunteer with you!
I'm a Campbell's girl myself. Oddly enough, growing up in the same household, my brother is addicted to Lipton's in these moments. I think you need a good, solid snort of cocaine, and you'll be fine. I was reading Willliam Zinsser tonight on "Writing to Learn," and he was talking about the level of opiates uses as tonics in the late 1800's-early 1900's in this country; for example, Metcalf's Coca Wine:
http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition.htm
Well..lots of things with coca wine, actually, and oh yeah, the necessity of presenting your subject in a concise manner so that your reader can clearly follow your train of thought. So where was I? Right.
So dump a few tablespoons of coca wine in that soup, and you'll be right as rain, at least I think that's what William Zinsser is telling me to tell you in a concise way.
I'm back. I brought Virginia Woolf with me. She has a few things to say on illness (and I would add that she obviously hasn't read William Zinsser on brevity of sentences and clarity in writing.)
"Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the light of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentists' arm-chair and confuse his "Rinse the mouth--rinse the mouth" with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us--when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature."
You see. Pause. Zinsser would never have let "obdurate oak" get through there and that weird transition from pastoral to watery sinkholes.
"Would someone check that woman's pockets for rocks? Please???"
::blue penciling Virginia's commas::::
How ya doin' today? ;)
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