Fighting the Uncommon Cold

I have caught a cold that my son brought home from school. A fun little bug. Not the mere scratchy-throat, sniffle\-once-or-twice variety, mind you. You know the kind: your eyes swell shut, and so does your nose. You can feel your skin against the blanket, and it hurts. The most aerobic exercise you get is reaching for the aspirin on a nearby table, and doing that hurts, too. This is a full-blown viral attack designed to wring the life out of me over a period of days. If my body really were a temple, building inspectors would want it imploded to make room for a landfill. My son got over his flu in three days. I'll be lucky to have my sinuses and throat muck-free by the next Harry Potter movie.

My wife told me to make an appointment with the doctor. They ask me to show up that day promptly at two-fifteen, maybe earlier. Clearly they have no idea they are talking to a sick person. Have they forgotten how slow a sick person moves? It's like watching a turtle trying to do Tai-Chi. So I did my best to get an early start. Making may way to the couch in just a few short hours, a brief rest felt necessary. Say, until next March. Luckily there was already a blanket there. Or it could have been a towel, I don't know. This is how I remember moving as a sick person, and it may sound familiar:

-Attempt to sit up. Get dizzy.
-Turn body to the right.
-Groan.
-Pass out.
-Blink Twice. Carefully.
-Whimper. Peel face off drooly pillow.
-Turn to the left.
-Roll head forward towards floor.
-Catch breath. Lean against couch.
-Use willpower to keep eyelashes from growing so loudly.
-Bend body down and to the left. Try to re-locate floor.
-Reach towards floor.
-Nope, the floor's not that way.
-Take a brief two-and-a-half hour rest.
-Let arm fall to floor by itself.
-Wrap fingers around small object, muster all the strength that's left....aaaaaaaaaaaand.....use the remote control to change the channel!

At one point it's not at all strange for me to wake up at two-thirty in the morning at the edge of the couch, upside-down and listening to an episode of Speed Racer-- in Spanish (Chim-Chim! Ven Aca! Vrrrrrroooom!). I'd find the remote, but someone has dropped a towel on my head.

At the next sunrise, my wife found me and asked why I was taking so long (apprently like the doctor, she has never been sick, either). She brought out some clothes and my wallet so I can try to visit the doctor today. I hurried as slowly as I could.

At the doctor's waiting room, I am surrounded by my fellow sick people for an hour, maybe more. It puzzled me for years as to how this is supposed to help you get better. Answer: It isn't. Maybe by keeping all the sick people coughing at each other in a space roughly the size of a shower, they could keep the outbreak from spreading. Or that Dustin Hoffman will show up in a yellow haz-mat suit to save you and Rene Russo before your turn comes up. But no such luck. You are called in to lie down in one of the rooms.

This is about the size of the waiting room, but you are alone. You, a bathroom scale, and a chart of the digestive system are the only things in this world until the next baseball season. Or until the doctor realizes he has to go somewhere, like Japan, for lunch. In thast case you wait a little longer. When he does arrive, you have to answer an oral exam no one warned you about: How long have you been sick? When did your symptoms begin? What medicine have you taken for it? What time did you take it? Do you have pain in your side, or just pain when you look to the side? What is the capital of Budapest?

He then gives you a piece of paper with strange words and numbers on it, and leaves. A four-hour wait for a ninety-second visit. In some other setting, you would make an angry complaint to his boss if he were, say, your waiter. I think this is why you won't find many doctors working at the International House of Pancakes.

A nuse will tell you to go to the pharmacy and pick up your prescriptions. I like to go the drugstore instead, because it is closer to my house and there are more snacks for sale. After a short seventy-eight minutes, I am given two bottles. "This may give you insomnia, and keep you up at night," the pharmacist soberly explains, "and this other one here might give you diarrhea". This means: (1) one medicine is going to keep you awake, and unable to sleep, and (2) the other will give you something to do. Who has that kind of time? I have this terrible, itching fear that it's because, in my weakened condition, I didn't know where Budapest was. Pehaps I'll decide to stay sick.

So it's back under the blankets to be alone with my thoughts. My one thought is: There is an infinte amount of matter in the universe. And I have proof. Take my nose. I'll dab it dry with a tissue (to be fair, I'm using the kind with lotion). Then I'll evacuate and blast it clean via the nose-blowing method (and use *two* tissues this time). Within seconds, a stream of liquid will come dripping uncontrollably through, clearly out of nowhere. This is nothing short of a miracle!

This can also be an incredible magic trick. "Ladies and Gentlemen, as you can see, there's nothing up my-- er, nose! Everyone in the first row have your ponchos from Sea World? Good! Now this is not for the faint of heart....One, Two, Three...................SSSCHRCCHCCHHHNNRRRNXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!! Aaaaaaand there it is! Go! Go! Go! Quick, Assistants grab the bucket! Oops, grab another one! And another one, please. Oh dear, does anyone have a towel to clean this up? A mop, perhaps? Oh, a blanket, thank you! Everyone, please give some applause to the hardworking stage janitors! Thank you, that will be twenty dollars per ticket! I shall be here all week!"

And remember to tip the waiters.