It all started with a guy named Ray. He was sick, and gave it to his boyfriend, Steven. Steven gave it to our friend Justin and Justin gave it to all of us. This illness is more of a minor annoyance to me, but quite troublesome for Scott because of his already extant breathing difficulties. I’ve been ‘chugging’ down tea as fast as I can brew it, for as much as you can chug just-off-the-boil water.

This is a plain-jane rhinovirus. You feel achy and have chills for a little while, then your head fills up with gunk and over some sleepless nights it spreads into your lungs. It makes breathing difficult and spreads along your vocal cords, which for me makes me more Barry White-Betty White than I care for. The key I’ve found is hot tea, hot soup, good food, rest and apparently TheraFlu, which I just took. The TheraFlu stuff is quite good. It’s got a cough-supressant, a decongestant, and an antihistamine. You prepare it just like you do tea. I threw in a packet of Splenda to make the medicine go down but it wasn’t unpleasant at all to take. I like the idea of a powder added to hot water as it’s almost as perfect-for-your-system as it can get. No having to dissolve dextrose or cellulose pill containers, the chemicals are already a little higher than body temperature so absorption is marvellously quick. I’m sure a good portion of how I feel is placebo, but my nose is draining and my froggy/tickle has just about gone away at the back of my throat.

The question I have to face is, do I head into work tomorrow or do I attempt some sort of telecommuting angle? WMU is renowned for being very skitterish about presenteeism and handling of leaves of absences. I of course have nothing to worry about because I have over 480 hours of accrued sick leave, but I do need to get some work accomplished. I will see how I feel tomorrow of course, as is the usual way.

I think there is a trifecta for dealing with this virus, Zicam, TheraFlu, and Mucinex-D. That should make your system hut right to it, and you won’t have to put up with the obnoxious irritation that this virus represents. I knock on wood that this virus has no stomach-upsetting angle to it.

Scott has gone to urgent care as his health insurance is poor and adding him to my insurance would bankrupt me. They’ll give him a breathing treatment and then chide him for using urgent care most likely. I do not envy his position, already being under-the-gun as it were and to add this insult-to-injury. I don’t think a doctors visit for me would do any good other than probably waste money and pre-occupy a doctor with a triage-worthy sack of symptoms. I’m doing what common sense dictates, rest, fluids, and symptom management. My immune system will do the rest.