It starts out simply enough. There is just a little scratch and tickle up somewhere in the sinus, uvula area and it is irritating but not debilitating. You can gargle but that doesn’t help. I remember my old Pastor would take salt and mix it in warm water and then snort it up/down his nose and he said that would fix it. I never tried but that particular feeling in the back of the throat is like a tornado siren to me. You know something is coming but you don’t know how bad or how long it will last. Then comes the cough, the fever, eyes that feel like sand paper while also feeling like they are spritzing tears all over.
There hasn’t been a comic invention like Sheldon Cooper of “The Big Bang Theory” since Don Knots blustered his way around as Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show”. Sheldon is terrified of the flu and colds and his methods of dealing with them when he gets them is mostly to whine and cry. The scene above is his trip to the Cheese Cake Factory to get soup from Penny who he believes is the Typhoid Mary who gave him the flu in the first place. His departing words as he leaves are, “you’re doomed, you’re all doomed!”
My doom hit on Tuesday and I haven’t yet identified my typhoid Mary, or Jeff, whoever it might be. I just remember that feeling of absolute fury that I was getting sick. None of us have time for this nonsense. At some point one gives into the darkness and stops raving and simply goes to sleep with a prayer that when you wake you won’t be sick anymore. This is now Friday and at least I can see to write on my computer but it is a long way to normal whatever that is.
