Signs and Symptoms of Sickness

Aside from the usual cold symptoms – coughing, sneezing, headache, fever, sore throat – I have noticed a few more symptoms that are seemingly traveling with this season’s cold du jour. I thought I would share them because, in hindsight, they’re pretty damn entertaining. However, while in the midst of them, it all seems pretty daunting.

Do feel free to laugh. I’m inviting you to. Also, if you have some lovelies to share, I invite you to pour out your heart in the comments below!

The main symptom that has shown up in numerous threads on Facebook and has even tumbled out of my mouth is an overall sense of “unsexy” while in the throes of this sickness. Something about the current cold is completely unsexy-fying and it does it quite thoroughly. The one of my dear friends described his girlfriend quite hilariously when he said, “Rivers of snot. Moving like a zombie. Speaking like you’re almost passed out from tequila poisoning…” This really describes this illness perfectly and… well… graphically. So, if you’re feeling unsexy right now, you might be experiencing one of the symptoms of this season’s illness!

Other signs and symptoms that you may be sick include:

Carrying on an entire conversation with your teenage daughter and all you remember is saying, “Oh! Wow! I am really altered.” And her laughter as she said, “Yes, mom. I can tell!”
Opening your eyes and feeling like you’re going to keel over, then realizing you’re actually lying down so keeling over wouldn’t be that bad at all.
Your digital thermometer only registers a frownie face for a moment.
Opening every window and the door in the living room to let in the frigid night air and still being too hot.
Stringing more than 7 words together in a sentence causes not only brain-fry, but also horrific bouts of coughing that leads to vomiting. Therefore, you revert to selective mutism, sign language, and head gestures, all of which make for impossible phone conversations. You still love the friends that insist on trying to talk with you on the phone so you know they love you.
You opt for a shower, thinking it will perk up your spirits, and end up curled into the fetal position, shivering, in the bottom of the tub with the shower beating down upon you.
You send your teenage daughter into the store with money to get you some NyQuil. She comes back out to inform you she cannot purchase it because she is under 18. She escorts you back inside the store and when the checker sees you, she gasps and immediately says, “Oh honey! I am SO! SORRY! I made you come inside to get this.”
ANY sound is too much noise.
You feel like you’ve done 5,000 rapid-fire oblique crunches.
Your favorite soup, while boiling, feels cold to your mouth and is flavorless.
You roll over in your full-size bed and the journey feels like traveling to Timbuktu and back again.
Sitting upright is a delirious-making situation.
You drool for no apparent reason.
You swear you propped your hand under your pillow to raise your head a little for comfort, but it seems to want to hang off the side of the bed. When you open your eyes to send this hand the “evil eye” as scolding, you discover that you’re nowhere near the edge of the bed and you’re lying on your back staring at the ceiling with both hands at your sides.
You’ve developed and mastered the art of Snougheezing – a sneeze and a cough at the same time that makes you pee a little.
Because you are coughing so much and so long and so hard, you’ve discovered that it is easiest to have a bucket with you at all times and to wear Depends. The idea of the hundreds of loads of laundry spawned from this illness makes you more sick. You find no shame in purchasing Depends.
In the middle of the illness, it is impossible to construct a coherent paragraph. Trust me. I’ve tried.
Bickering is enough to make you go batty, but you can do nothing about it but lie on the couch and moan.
Your exercise consists of rising from bed, going to the bathroom, slinking into the living room, and crashing on the couch. Then you need a nap.
You spill your orange juice all over the counter while pouring it into your glass. There are several reasons for this: 1) you’re dizzy; 2) you can’t see the glass; 3) the gallon of orange juice is really heavy, for some reason; 4) the opening on the juice glass has gotten way too small.
Once you realize your orange juice is all over the counter, you ponder what you will do next, knowing that having to clean it up is way beyond your energy capacity. That’s fine, you think, the dog can clean it up. Problems with this: 1) it is on the counter top; 2) you don’t have a dog.