How I Fight a Cold

Last week, when I flew home from a conference in Phoenix, I was a mess. I had known I was due for a cold and, sure enough, it hit with a vengeance.

This was unacceptable. I had to fly to Seattle on Tuesday night and Sarah was going to meet me in Portland for the following weekend. I had to take action. When I fight disease, I fight to win. And while, the cold lingered well past its sell-by date, here's how I went from on my ass last Friday night to a cross-country flight Tuesday night and managed to feel OK:

  • I stop drinking - I know. Rare is the night I don't have at least one drink. It's OK. My doctor says it's fine. Anyhow... From when I got on my flight in Phoenix until this past Thursday night, no alcohol. Zip. Don't need my body processing anything but a virus.
  • I drink all kinds of other stuff. I have a rule with a cold... if I stand up, it's time for a glass of water. I must have had 6 cups of tea a day, too. Lunch? Soup. I basically challenge the virus' ability to make a real dent in me if all I'm doing is, essentially, asking my kidneys to move things along, per se.
  • Drugs. I do not hold back on the drugs. Homeopathic remedies and zinc lozenges are great, but I need some serious stuff. Since they made pseudo-ephedrine a controlled substance, I switched from NyQuil/DayQuil to the new Tylenol Cold suite of drugs. The daytime stuff makes me feel dopey... no idea how addicts can function. The nighttime stuff not only puts me straight out, but it gives we whacked out dreams. Way out there.
That's pretty much the plan. But you do that for 72 hours and things start to turn for you. I'm leaving out the part about hacking up whatever ickiness there is to be had, but no one wants to hear the details of that.

Anyhow, I wasn't feeling grand when I walked into the Sheraton Seattle Downtown on Tuesday evening, but I was miles better than a few days earlier. Fight to win, folks. Fight to win.

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