The Two Things That Halved My Common Cold Discomfort Levels
Not to turn this blog into Ruth’s Compendium of Ailments, but no sooner had I rid myself of the now infamous “Center Parcs Trench Foot/Swamp Arse Malaise of 2026” than my eight year old son came home from school carrying the seed of a cough-cold virus and sneezed it directly into my face.
Obviously my eight year-old shook off his burning temperature and racking cough within two days; I, having the apparent constitution of a sickly Victorian aunt, forever having to be perambulated to the seashore with rugs piled on her lap, have had the same cough-cold for over a week.
Total bed rest! Bits of toilet roll everywhere! Pathetic little forays down to the kitchen in my dressing gown to get honey and lemon! Which is always a depressing sort of feeling, isn’t it? The dressing gown during the day. There’s something about wearing flammable fleece after 11am that makes you want to simply give up on things.
Anyway, on the first night of the cough-cold I got three and a half hours of sleep. (As evidenced by my Oura ring read-out.) Three and a half hours! My throat felt as though it was filled with gloopy sand. If I sat upright I couldn’t sleep, mainly because I’m not Dracula, if I lay down then all of the gloopy sand just slowly dripped down my throat, to be coughed out violently and then magically make its way back up to the top of my nose to start the whole process again.
HOW IS THIS HAPPENING? I thought to myself. HOW CAN THIS SIMPLE AND MINOR AILMENT DESTROY ME SO EASILY?
I was incredulous, actually: incredulous that at the age of 45 I was still allowing something like a common cold to stop me from sleeping. With all of my vast experience! I mean, how many times have we all had colds? Why do they always come as such a surprise? How are we not prepared? Why does it take until day three, when all energy resources are depleted and you feel as though you’re dying from the Bubonic Plague, to remember that there are FAILSAFE, WONDROUS DRUGS that can immediately cut your suffering level in half?
I have two such failsafe drugs and I am recording them here so that I can remind myself, the next time I get a cough-cold, to immediately procure them by any means necessary:
