sick

The cold that finally caught up with me in March stuck around for a few days, and my testimony in the church of Paleo got even more robust when it didn’t stick around for any longer. Colds on my father’s side of the family do not go away easily. In fact, today will be 28th consecutive day he’s had a nasty head cold. Yeah, 28. A month of being sick. He’d go to the doctor but they’d take a look at his last name, realize he’s a Hamilton, and tell him that the only cure is to have been born to another family. You can’t take antibiotics to cure you of your lineage.

But then… after only a few days of feeling very good I woke up last Friday morning and felt that familiar itchy feeling in my throat again, that pressure in my head. By Saturday night the cold had returned with even more strength, and it knocked me completely over. I called my father and moaned into the phone, “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.” I didn’t specify exactly what was his fault and left him to wonder if I was referring to my cold, why I left the church, or the reason I have paid thousands of dollars in psychotherapy. Which one, Dad? WHICH ONE.

Why did it come back? I don’t know, because it missed me? Because I am simply adorable when blowing my nose? Because Hamiltons are the valedictorians of host organisms?

I’ve been analyzing this probably more than I should be, but everyone’s allergies this season are crippling. This past winter was very similar to the one Utah experienced in 2003, the one when I moved back here from LA. That spring was the first time I ever experienced seasonal allergies in my entire life. I had never before sneezed because of a blooming tree. Perhaps this is all happening because it’s the perfect storm of allergies and a weakened immune system. Or perhaps I could just stop coming up with theories, drink some DayQuil and shut up already.

I went back to the comments some of you left when I wrote about that cold to get some ideas about how to cope and/or speed up the recovery process of this illness, and well… this is going on:

What is that? Well, I am so glad you asked. That’s my nightstand, and if you look closely you will notice that there are two bowls of onions sitting there. Why? To absorb my germs. One reader (hi, Corby!) mentioned this little trick, that “an onion on the bedside table of a sick person will absorb all the badness in the room, microbes, germs, etc. and helps restore the health of the patient.” The good news is that I haven’t gotten any worse. The bad news is that I haven’t gotten any better. The worst news is that years from now when Leta is swapping horror stories with her friends about the crazy things their mothers did when they were growing up she is going to have absolutely no competition whatsoever.

“My mother slept with onions next to her bed because she thought they warded off evil spirits. She was also a blogger.”

You might, too, notice a tall glass of warm honey/lemon water. I’ve been drinking three-four of those a day, and they help relieve my sore throat. There’s also my normal water bottle there that I’m using to drink 4,000 oz of water a day to try and drown this thing. I’ve also got some soothing essential oils I’ve been putting on the soles of my feet and spraying on my pillow. What you don’t see are the warm baths with apple cider vinegar and the vitamin D I’ve been popping. You guys turned me into a full-on hippy! I’ve got Joni Mitchell blasting on the tape deck in my Volkswagon bus and just now when I farted huge white daisies shot out of my butt.

The carrots and grapes? Not medicinal, but I haven’t had much of an appetite and I’m trying to keep some calories in my system. I even have a contraband corn tortilla there to nibble on. In the evening I’ll try to finish a bowl of something while catching up on a certain show that I fell behind on. I’m not going to say which one because there are so many spoilers out there and I keep running into them and I do not want to tempt you to spill the beans on any major plot points LA LA LA LA LA COVERING MY EARS. Fine. Does Tony Soprano die?

The monitor? I use it to spy on my neighbors. Hi, Diane!

The one piece of advice that I haven’t tried but think we should all film ourselves trying? This one from Sally: wrap a t-shirt around your vibrator and apply it to your forehead, eyes, and nose to loosen up the fluid in your sinus cavities and relieve pressure.

You go first.