THE MARTIAN DEATH COLD
I’m just getting over a cold. I hate having a cold, but I especially hate March colds.
By March you think you’ve passed the winter without getting one. You think you’ve beaten the odds, dodged the virus bullet. You feel vindicated that you skipped your flu shot last November and saved eight bucks. You’ve watched friends and family sniffling and groaning and coughing for the past five and a half months. You’ve felt superior. Because you’ve washed your hands religiously, maybe even a little obsessively if you listen to your slovenly sister-in-law. Because when the leaves started to turn colors last autumn you doubled your vitamin C dosage for the duration of winter.
Throughout the long winter you’ve sympathetically handed out special boxes of super-soft tissues, purchased bottles of the latest cold remedies, and poured endless glasses of orange juice and cups of tea with honey down raw throats.
Then March comes, with its deceptive spring-fragranced breezes that surprise you one morning when you nip out for the newspaper and the tiny green leaves of the crocuses sheltered on the south side of the house under the bird feeder begin to emerge. You let down your guard.
Last Thursday morning I awoke with a scratchy throat. I looked at the gray sky and damp pavements and thought, weather change. By mid-afternoon I had a definite sore throat, and my ears felt a bit, well, achy. A bowl of hearty soup for supper made me feel like I was taking very good care of myself and warding off any marauding virus. I didn’t really feel very sick, so I threw a couple of honey-lemon throat lozenges in my pocket and went to my writer’s group meeting. Ordered a bottle of cold water instead of my usual decaf mocha latte with whipped cream because the cold felt good on my throat.
By Friday morning, I felt as if an overweight gnome had taken up residence on my chest. My head was stuffed, and my throat and ears had taken on a fire all their own. Happy that it was my day off, I lay on the couch for hours, attired in sweats and sweaters with tissues stuck in all pockets and peeking out from my sleeves.
I remember my grandmother had tissues everywhere. Had I aged thirty years overnight? I certainly felt like it.
Fate had blessed the family with a refrigerator full of leftovers, so they were spared having meals prepared by the rotting corpse that had been their mother only a day before.
By early evening I knew that I had fallen victim to “The Martian Death Cold.” You know the one. It’s when you feel you have to get better to die. My throat was so sore I could barely swallow, not that I was hungry, and my voice was a cross between Oscar the Grouch and Alfalfa from The Little Rascals. My head was so full of mucus I thought my brain had dissolved. My right ear had gone deaf, the left one had an annoying ringing, and I was developing a cough that would have done a lovesick basset hound proud.
Saturday morning found me foraging in the medicine cabinet for something, anything, that promised relief. The gnome on my chest had gained weight overnight and my nose was dripping like the faucet in a ten-dollar-a-night motel room. I reclaimed the couch, afghan, and remote and prepared to spend the day snoozing and sipping endless glasses of half orange juice and half lemon-lime soda (our family’s traditional remedy for dire illness) provided by my caring husband and marginally sympathetic children. Hours of animal shows, travelogues, and old movies passed in a haze of sneezing, coughing, and dozing. At one point I thought I’d died since I distinctly remember people walking by me with flowers, but then I woke to discover I’d slept through a show about flower arranging on the garden channel. Whew.
By eight PM I was tired of lying on the couch, so I took the whole circus to bed, where I spent a restless night, shivering and sweating, coughing and sneezing, and blowing my nose.
Sunday morning dawned bright and early and so did I. Okay, so I got up early in the throes of a coughing fit and I didn’t feel very bright. My long-suffering husband and I discussed what cocktail of over-the-counter remedies I might take to feel better, but I opted instead for a nice, long, hot shower while he changed the sheets and brought me clean sweats. He is a prince among men.
By midafternoon Sunday, after countless glasses of juice and a few bowls of the best chicken soup on the planet (thanks, Emeril), I felt like I might survive “The Martian Death Cold.”
And I was right. Here it is Wednesday, and I have regained most of my mental and physical capabilities… well, as much of them as a woman on the shady side of fifty can expect. I can hear out of both ears, I can almost taste my food, and my throat feels like it’s almost back to normal.
Next March, I’ll be ready.
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I am thankful I avoided the Death Cold this year and I appreciate the fact that you did not share that virus with me. thank you.