It Happens

They say (whoever 'they' are) that when one is run down, then the immunity system is more susceptible to picking up colds and coughs.  This is true.

How could someone who has been visiting a hospital frequently last week, who used hand sanitizer often, pick up a cold?  Ok...it is a hospital full of sick people, but still.  

Usually when I feel the usual signs of a cold coming, I stock up on Mucinex, start taking it every 12 hours, and ward it off.  I have done that a few times this fall/winter.  But this one sneaked up on me.

Saturday my nose began to run.  Little rattles of a cough started to plant themselves in my chest.  Sneezes could not be stifled, which prompted a nose that dripped often.

And what could I do?  Nothing.  My Mucinex was at home on the dining room table.  

After a night of blowing my nose on toilet paper (and fortunately Hilary had two ply tissue even though she ran out of kleenexes), after sitting downstairs in the recliner for an hour because I just couldn't breathe, and after opening my nasal passages by breathing in the vapors from a hot shower, Gary and I went to Meijer to pick up a new box of Mucinex DM and four boxes in a pack of Kleenex.  
Another dose of meds will come before I go to sleep, once again in my own bed (which I have not slept in much in the last 30 days).  I sleep well on the mattress at Hilary's house, but it just isn't the same as my own bed in my own bedroom in my own house with my own blankets and my favorite pillow.  

Plus we picked up a bottle of orange juice at Kroger's this evening on the way home.  An extra dose of Vitamin C can't hurt anything, can it?

Yes, it happens.  Colds hit when least expected, after trying hard NOT to get one, and seem to not care what other activities are planned that they may interrupt.   

For now I have a nearly complete pack of Mucinex, a full bottle of orange juice, a supply of tea bags for hot tea, and several boxes of Kleenex to blow my drippy nose into.  And I have my bed.  Ahhhh...sleep.  The best medicine of all!