one doozy of a cold

I'm on the recovering end of one doozy of a cold (fingers crossed now) Wow. I'm weak just thinking about it. Last Tuesday I had a tickle in my throat and a useless kind of cough that didn't do anything about it. By Wednesday my voice was hoarse and quiet, and I still had that useless cough. By Thursday I was mute and I stayed home from classes, sleeping all afternoon and generally feeling under the weather. Still the useless cough. Friday morning I made it to class, with a little bit of a cough and some sneezing, but was so utterly exhausted by the afternoon I slept it all away. Friday night the coughing and sneezing started in earnest, and Kendall said I coughed/sneezed every 30 sec until 3:30 a.m. when I retreated to the living room to allow Kendall to rest. I myself didn't sleep. At noon on Saturday, Kendall got home from his weekend class and I still hadn't slept and was still coughing and fitfully sneezing. He went to CVS and brought home the equivalent of Dayquill/Nyquill. I took some of that, and was promptly asleep for 5 hours that afternoon. I called off my commitments for Sunday, slept 11 hours Saturday night, then 2.5 hours Sunday morning, another 2.5 Sunday afternoon, and a full 8.5 last night.

I don't like depending on pharmaceuticals to become better; I like to think I generally maintain my health with preventative action. I like to exercise, eat healthy, take my vitamins and act on first symptoms with rest. I prefer herbal supplements most of the time - I swear by oil of oregano to take on my ailments, and echinacea or ginseng to boost my immune system. I tried a mustard plaster to loosen up the phlegm in my throat (which it did, it did bring on the serious real coughs) But with this cold, it seems, once the cough came, I couldn't sleep without medicine masking the symptoms. And now I'm still on symptom-masking meds. For which I'm very grateful.

There's always a balance, isn't there? I don't want to medicate every problem; I want to give my body the chance to heal. I want to build up my immune system, I want to prevent illness as much as possible with healthy diet and lifestyle. But when it comes to a cold like this one, I am firmly grateful for whatever's in this Dayquill/Nyquill stuff.