Death By Common Cold

Can I just start by saying the 'the common cold' is a very misleading term. It sounds so mild and harmless while sometimes it can be anything but. No I do not know of anyone who has died of a head cold so lets be clear on the fact that I am being melodramatic but my everything hurts so I feel entitled to exaggerate a bit for entertainments sake.

There has been a cold doing the rounds over the last few weeks in work and I have been lucky to escape it. Usually in an enclosed environment it gets you eventually but I thought I had dodged the snotty bullet. I had not. I had the odd sneeze or cough or sniffle but the next day it would be gone and I thought that was my wonderful immune system. Then last Thursday I woke up before work only able to breathe out of one nostril and I knew the battle had commenced. I stopped at a shop on the way to work for reinforcements in anticipation ( reinforcements being balsam tissues, strepsils and painkillers) and by my morning break I had a foggy head, a throat like I had been eating glass and a nose running so fast my tissues could barely catch it. I do usually shake my colds fast but I had a long day Friday and I was steadily feeling ever so sorry for myself so that morning I stopped and bought better, caffeinated painkillers to get me through work. The tablets were grand. I mean I felt lousy but they helped me power through to 9pm and I don't think I actually stopped to question how much caffeine they had in them until I was lying in bed later that night twitching and wide awake.

Spoiler alert, they were caffeinated as fuck. I eventually fell asleep after finishing my book around 7 am.This did set my weekend off to a good start. I went and got some very boring jobs out of the way while feeling very dizzy and a bit out of it. I was also still blowing my nose pretty much constantly. It wasn't long before I came home for a 3 hour nap. It left me dozy but slightly more human and I got through a play that night by sniffing a lot ( opportunities to loudly blow my nose were limited ) and suppressing my cough. I got an early night and still woke wretched the next day. This cold was aging like a fine wine. Well except it wasn't. I was definitely getting worse and not better. On Sunday I bought a cough medicine and got a pretty decent nap plus did a lot of reading and honestly I wasn't up to much else.

Mondays lunch was pretty sad because I was supposed to cook stuff Sunday and I just felt too lousy to do it. The cold continued, I felt lousy. I was running out of tissues. I was becoming seriously concerned about the welfare of my nose which my boyfriend kept telling me I was blowing too aggressively. Surely that's not a real thing. I was blowing it so I could breathe properly which felt somewhat essential. My cough was coming along lovely but despite this miserable dose I got through work. I fell asleep last night around my normal time with my nose slathered in vaseline but I woke suddenly in the middle of the night feeling like I was drowning. Admittedly this is not my favourite way to wake up. I tried to blow my nose but I couldn't clear it. I fell back asleep only to wake again flailing around and gasping. I clogged my wonky nostril with tissue and propped myself up with cushions and slept in a very unnatural position, half propped up in bed. I woke at regular intervals and eventually got up for work feeling like death warmed up.

This time on my way to work I stopped for magic nose unclogger ( in your face wonky nostril) and more tissues ( if this goes on I may buy shares in kleenex) and a giant coffee. My nose is now glowing like I am Ruddolf or some now dead celebrity who wrecked her septum by overdoing it with coke (or so I am told). I am pale and clammy and everyone I meet feels obliged to tell me how terrible I look. I must say this really helps. Yes I really do feel as bad as I look thanks so much for noticing. I foolishly take someone on a really long walk rather than admit I feel like actual death and this makes me very sweaty and feverish plus I almost run out of places to store soggy tissues on this walk. I resist the impulse to scatter them behind me in a trail like some sort of disgusting version of Hansel and Gretel. I keep on blowing my nose even there cant't be anything else and I must have coughed up a lung but I now I have a magic cough syrup that I am sure will fix me. I get through this long day with the promise of day off tomorrow and I hope beyond hope that tomorrow will be the one where I start to feel better. So much for the common cold.

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