Over the weekend, I became ill. How could I not? In every single one of my classrooms, there are sneezing fits, coughing and hacking, or some form of blowing of the nose. Then those people go and touch doorknobs, desks, railings — you name it. It’s all one big nasty cycle of mucus and I am at the short end of the stick.
After my wallowing in self-pity about not having the strength to go out on Friday or Saturday night, I got over it and decided to tell my sickness to suck it and leave me alone. I didn’t do this alone, of course.@@You mean you didn’t say ‘suck it’ alone?@@ That leads me into this week’s blog about taking care of that scratchy throat over the weekend.
First, I realized that I needed plenty of sleep. So I made my bed all snuggly and planned at least 10 hours of sleep for the night ahead. Somehow, I was able to achieve a crazy 11 hours of sleep each night – don’t ask me how. I really don’t like sleeping in past 9:30 a.m. but for some reason it was absolutely necessary. I slept like a rock and it was apparently needed.
That was my first attempt of knocking the cold out of me. I threw up my hands and said, “Fine, body! I’ve worked you to death and now you have forbidden me to go out on the weekend to consume alcohol. I’ll rest this weekend.” So I did.
After the sleep, I found myself becoming a zombie. I even did the zombie walk to the bathroom. You know, the one where you drag your feet and stare at yourself in the mirror with almond-shaped, red, puffy eyes and wonder if this is what dead people look like.@@I do that when I’m drunk@@So I quickly washed my face to see if the zombie phase would go away — it didn’t.
Since it was Saturday at noon, I decided I should eat something healthy and filling. So I had some oatmeal, an English muffin and a tall glass of OJ. What do you know? My cold is in it for the long haul.
“Well, crap,” I thought. “Why won’t this cold go away?” @@Inner monologues are not a strength, apparently.@@
Later that evening at work, a customer commented on my raspy Kathleen Turner@@name checked@@ voice. She told me that she was a speech therapist and that I should limit my talking, drink lots of water and get lots of rest.
I trusted her, so I went home and did just that. At this point in my Saturday night, I’m feelin’ like a real winner. I found myself wrapped in an animal print blanket, no makeup, Halls cough drops for days — and it was only 10:30 p.m.
Sunday morning, though technically late-morning because it was 11 a.m., I awoke with a rock in my throat. At least it felt like a rock. My neck was tender to the touch and swollen to the size of a grapefruit. We’ve all had those mornings when we wake up wishing someone would just rip out our tonsils, right?
In response, I ran across the street to Safeway and picked up some tea. Holy crap. I’m a tea lover now. Temporarily, it melted away the rock and left me satisfied; however, nighttime was not the same story.
As I got ready for bed, I started to feel a bit of a tickle in my throat, so I got a glass of water ready to aid my irritation. The irritation persisted, as I knew it would so I used the only vice I could think of: Nyquil. Like a rock, I was out in five minutes. As my weekend came to a close, so did my sickness.
Overall, I found that these things were my BFFs throughout the weekend: water, Halls cough drops (honey lemon), Lipton green tea, OJ and Nyquil.
I hope that a sickness doesn’t completely ruin your weekend as it did mine, but if it does then maybe your body is simply telling you to put the cocktail down and take a night off. @@I shudder to think what an non-ruined weekend looks like for you@@