Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is sick. Sick, SICK, SICK!
That shouldn't happen, right? I am not trapped in a classroom with 100 students per day any more. Not required to stand sentinel at the doorway as they pass by, hacking and snorting and spewing all manner of viruses at my exposed mucous membranes and the gases about to enter my respiratory tract. NO! I am a stay-in-lair retiree who only makes one trip to town every day for the purchase of a 44 oz Diet Coke. And maybe a few scratch-off tickets.
This is not my first rodeo. I've been around the block. I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. I am an ex-science-teacher, by cracky! With BIOLOGY knowledge. I know that you don't succumb to a sickness by going out in the winter with wet hair, or catching a chill. You get a sickness by allowing the virus or bacteria that causes that sickness to gain access to your innards.
I do NOT touch my eyes, nose, mouth, ears, or face while I'm out and about. No siree, Bob! An itch will have to wait for the scratch after a Germ-X wash. Door handles and cart handles and slot machine handles and all manner of knobs and levers and keypads and vending machine buttons are rife with the sicknesses of other people. You might as well run your tongue over them as touch your face after handling them. Although the saliva and your digestive juices would probably start disarming those viruses and bacteria right away.
So...I don't know how I became ill.
It started on Monday morning. I woke up with a sore throat. Not the normal sore throat, up in the back of the roof of your mouth. You can gargle warm salt water and make that kind feel better for a while. Mine was in the lower neck-throat area. Like down on the vocal cords. The left one, more specifically. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... It won't quit! During the day, it sometimes becomes bearable. Then overnight, it goes back to feeling like I'm swallowing crushed glass.
I've been drinking a lot (WATER and DIET COKE, of course) to thin the mucus and make coughing it up a little easier. The dizziness is better. It's not really in my nose, just a few drips. Clear. I have Halls Mentho-Lyptus Honey Lemon, and The Devil's brand Equate Menthol Cherry cough drops. I can't talk much (Farmer H is rejoicing, I'm sure, when he's not saying, "WHAT?"), and when I do, I speak in a register lower than Farmer H himself.
Poor Farmer H. Heh, heh. You know I don't really feel a lot of sympathy for him, don't you? He has driven to town for three days in a row, trying to get a haircut, only to see a sign taped on the door of his barbershop, saying that the barber is out sick. "He must have what you do! He's NEVER been off this long."
I'm sure it's just a virus. Nothing I can do for it. Except whine, of course. Hoarsely. On Monday, I was dizzy when I woke up. I figure something got into my throat and made a run for my ears and down my neck. I can only imagine this virus got in because I dared to breathe. That's right. Mrs. HM is a breather. A MOUTH BREATHER!
Probably, in my travels, I was not quick enough to stop breathing when a ne'er-do-well coughed without blocking their spray of pathogens with a hand or elbow. Or I stopped breathing right then, but could not escape the full cloud of pathogens before I had to inhale again. Because your sickness will start in the area you first make contact with the pathogens. If I was a nose-breather, I'd have started with a standard runny nose, which would then progress down my throat and into my lungs. Or if I touched my eyeball with a pathogen-coated finger, I'd have had the watery eyes, then runny nose, then cough, etc.
I'm thinking I caught this sickness after we left the casino on Friday at 11:30. Otherwise, it's a pretty long incubation period. Maybe I got it at The Devil's Playground on Saturday. Or Save A Lot on Sunday. Various and assorted coughers were abundant in both places.
Right now I'm pretty pitiful. So pitiful that I turned down a trip to the local casino on Wednesday! Farmer H says he's taking me Friday. So I guess I'll feel good enough to go. Alls I know is...I'm typing this up on Thursday evening, hoping to make a miraculous recovery in the next 12 hours.
Don't bet on it. The bugs that are going around last for weeks.
ReplyDeleteGarlic is nature's antibiotic. Eat it often in your food and you'll strengthen your immune system. Other things to do are drink a mixture of honey, lemon juice and crushed garlic in hot/warm water several times a day, or a mix of equal parts honey and apple cider vinegar in warm water several times a day. But it should be started at the first sign of sore throat, when you wake up even slightly scratchy and continue until well. Or even longer. Like a couple of times a week. Also helps to keep your temperature stable while ill, no hot and cold extremes.
ReplyDeleteCan't blame me! I have stayed off the blog while sick!! I ventured out today, for the first time since December 22! I have been so sick, coughing and chest rattling. Dizzy and ache all over. If it was possible, I swear I could have coughed up my toenails! The only good thing was my lack of appetite, but it is coming back with a vengeance. I hope you will get over this quicker than I did.
ReplyDeleteSioux,
ReplyDeleteI just heard that from the checker at Save A Lot (where I get all of my reliable medical updates). She took her mom to a St. Louis hospital, and 60 people were in the waiting room, and she asked if she could just take her back home before she caught something worse than what she was there for. Apparently this was approved, since they had no beds available anyway.
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River,
Today is the first day that I feel just a slight bit better. I might attribute that to eating CHEX MIX leftover from a batch I made The Pony, which has EXTRA GARLIC POWDER! Though I'm not sure if the powdered version will work. I DID add crushed garlic to the ham and beans I made earlier in the week.
I've heard about the miracles of apple cider vinegar, and may give that a try the next time I can catch my sickness in the beginning stages.
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Kathy,
Okay. You're off the hook for infecting me over the innernets! I had the ache and dizziness, and the cough, though not as bad as your cough sounds. Glad you're on the mend, and that your toenails are now safe.
Garlic is garlic in whatever form. I know people who swallow an entire clove each day and let their digestion sort out the goodness. I prefer mine in my food usually, but have done the crushed in a hot drink thing a couple of times at the beginning or our winters. Try the apple cider vinegar on a daily basis. One teaspoon mixed with a teaspoon of honey and swallow at bedtime. The bonus is a teaspoon of honey each day helps your body to retain its calcium.
ReplyDeleteI think I probably have had the same thing. May have visited the same casino at some point that you visited during your Casinopalooza,as I live here in the corner of SW Missouri. Anyway, I came down with it the day after Christmas and am just now starting to feel like I'm almost over it. Spent several evenings wrapped up in a blanket with the fire place going full blast freezing to death. Then it just turned into a bad chest cold with a terrible cough. I took Musinex during the day and good ol' Nyquil at night. Drink lots of water (and Diet Coke) and use lots of Hall's menthol cough drops.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteHoney and vinegar might be like sweet and sour! I didn't know that about honey and calcium.
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Nancy,
I guess my sickness is about a week behind yours. Today is the first day I've felt okay, but I still have that cough. I've been drinking lots of water, and of course 44 oz PLUS of Diet Coke, and using those menthol cough drops. I used to do the Mucinex, but for some reason I stopped that several years ago. I did indeed have chills and couldn't get warm. I have a tale about that coming up on my other blog sometime this week.
We were at Downstream, The Outpost, High Winds, Indigo Sky, Buffalo Run, River Bend, and The Stables. So many casinos, so few wins! We usually do pretty good out there, but the red screens were not happening this trip. We went mid-week to use our free rooms at Downstream on Wednesday night and Thursday night, after Christmas.