Sicko
I am blessed with a good healthy constitution, which I attribute mostly to my upbringing of eating a lot of emerging markets dirt. I spent six hears of my youth in the less than hermetically sealed areas of Latin America. The tropical valley in Costa Rica for two years seems somewhat self-explanatory. Things were always on the edge there. The edge of the jungle. The edge of civilization. The edge of tropical dampness. The edge of sanitation. The four years spent in Venezuela were better than they imply since in the mid-1950’s Venezuela was probably a more advanced and modern country relative to other Latin American countries of the time than it is today. But a 1950’s Venezuela was still a pretty unhealthy place. Infant mortality is the best gauge, going from over 10% in the ‘50’s to less than 1% recently (although it has backslid over the last decade of Venezuelan turbulence). So, it is fair to say that all that dirt probably built my immune system.
It’s no secret that hay fever, allergies and strange new afflictions like gluten-intolerance are on the rise as our kids eat less and less dirt with increased sanitation and clean-living. Organic, non-GMO food might be unhealthier than we think if we consider the full effect of reduced immune system impact (no, I will not be engaging in the GMO debate).
The result of this for me is that I don’t get sick very often. The thing that I do get a bit paranoid about is flying. We all know that airports are the bus stations of our era. The bathrooms may look safer than the Port Authority bathrooms, but I’m not sure they are with all the distant travelers that process through any given airport on an average day. This is not xenophobic, but just logical. People from distant lands carry distant land germs. I carry my germs to them as well, perhaps to greater ill-effect than their germs to me. Just read Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs and Steel fame to refine your thinking about how Western germs killed off more emerging markets people than any wars we ever waged.
I am a believer that recirculated aircraft air is a hotbed for contagion. We’ve all heard of Legionnaire’s Disease and these cruise ship food epidemics. Closed systems are simply challenging for anyone trying to avoid unwanted germs. So, it is little wonder to me that two eight-hour stints on an airplane to and from Amsterdam last week might have subjected me to a cold or flu bug that bit me when my defenses were down.
On Saturday I just felt punky from the long flight. On Sunday I chose to lay low since I felt it coming on. I doped up with Nyquil last night and slept like a log for seven hours. Today, I am in the full-fledged grip of the Grippe. Throat, sinuses, headache. Yep, it’s a cold for sure. That means I will suffer through a day or two of discomfort followed by a day or two of recovery followed by a day or two of wondering when it will ever go away, followed by forgetfulness that I was ever not well. That is, at least, the best-case scenario. We have all experienced things going awry with this program, mostly by not being wise enough to give our bodies the rest they need to fight the infection.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t tend to baby my colds by staying in bed, unless it’s a lazy Sunday anyway. I get up, DayQuil myself and go about my business until I fade out. I do tend to use my ailment to extract some spousal sympathy and service, but even that has its limits, even with my otherwise angelic wife. But when I feel ill or genuinely sick, I do become far less tolerant of the problems of others. My patience goes away almost entirely, which I suppose is my form of self-centeredness.
I will self-medicate a cold, like most people. We all know that there is little to be done. I just want to minimize the symptoms so as not to be too gross as I go about my daily routine. I will try to stay away from people, though I tend to believe the infectious stage is always before the symptoms kick in for real. That is how germs flourish, by being quicker and smarter than humans and sneaking up on them before caution is obvious.
Feed a cold, starve a fever. The reason for this old wives’ tale is that food would raise the body temperature and thus “help” a cold and “hurt” a high temperature condition. Pretty much hogwash, since good caloric intake that helps the bodies’ immunology fire up properly is about the only good advice. The one thing I do advocate is about hydration. I always figure flushing the system must do some good and with all the fluids coming out of me during a cold, I tend to think it is logical to replenish fluids as much as possible.
I am starting to feel that this piece is becoming a bit too mundane since all these thoughts and advice only show one thing…that it is hard to think of anything else when you are not feeling up to par. As the old saying goes, “nothing goes right when your underwear’s tight.” I suppose that is a writer’s form of self-pity. I’m not in good fettle and I want everyone to know it and share my pain. Poor baby.
I’ve procrastinated all I can and must now dress and go to work, wandering in a bit late as my form of protesting my impaired condition. Hopefully, writing about all this will minimize my “oh woe is me” approach to my day. At least for the sake of my office mates, I hope that is the effect. Let’s be real for a moment. I work a half block from my apartment. I could easily just stay here in my underwear and watch MSNBC all day while keeping up with my email. There would be no harm of foul in doing that except that I pretty much did just that yesterday. Therefore, going to work is just my attempt to make time pass faster by changing venue. It also adds to my martyr complex to trudge into the office. I will set as an objective to make my next blog post less about me. Maybe I’ll ask you what you think about me and my cold.