Surviving Sickness without Drugs or Whiskey

I’m not sure I’ve ever taken a sick day. A hangover day, maybe, but a true innocent sick day… Nope. Not a one. I’m a robust broad.

Then Wednesday night happened. I started coughing and wheezing. I was at the gym with Eric and I was lounging on the recumbent bike. The long line of treadmillers were smirking at me as I was huffing along at near zero resistance and unimpressive speed.

My coughing continued through some comical ab exercise attempts, some heavily aided pull-ups and some cosmetic curls.

By the time we got home, the coughing was painful and my throat began its steady decline into the pits of flamey hell, where it stayed until Thursday night.

The Internet and I spent the next 12 wonderful hours together trying to figure out how to ease my raw throat but not mutate my dear sweet fetus.

Fetus cameo!!

Natural Remedy 1) Lemon Ginger Tea with Squozen Meyer Lemon and Honey. This concoction was hot, tangy, sweet and didn’t do shit for my throat. I certainly felt cool drinking it, but it would have been way better with some Jack in it. Grade: D.

Natural Remedy 2) Salt Gargle. Ok seriously whose idea was this? A teaspoon of salt dissolved into warm water. Just TRY to gargle this without at least a dry heave. You can’t. The acid that your stomach shoots up in response will make your bloody throat even more upset. Grade: F.

Fetus response to salt gargle:

Not-so-Natural-but-Pretty-Benign Remedy 3) Boring-Ass Cough Drops.

These puppies felt like they might actually ease my pain a bit. Soon after I started smacking them down, however, my salivary glands went a little overboard and I was swallowing A LOT. I guess I was gulping air or something because I began to burp. The burps didn’t slow down. And they hurt. Grade: C.

Questionable Remedy 4) Generic Expired CVS NyQuil. So Internets told me that this is basically ok for pregnant folk, however the alcohol in it is of concern (10%) if you exceed the recommended dosage. I was desperate for relief and sleep (it was 3:00 AM by this point and I had just left a pitiful voicemail message for my boss letting him know that I was officially calling in dead for the day). So I did it- Half a dose! One glorious teaspoon of green syrup. I was asleep in 15 minutes. Grade: A.

Natural Remedy 5) Orange Juice. Because Vitamin C will cure you. Either that or give you insane heartburn. Grade: D.

Natural Remedy 6) Settlers of Catan.

This game was voted #1 board game in 1995 and doesn’t disappoint- getting me to the waning stages of Death Throat and on to Slime Face. The only downside is that, despite playing this for at least half of my sick day, I didn’t win once. Grade: A+.

Not-so-Natural-but-Pretty-Benign Remedy 7) Cepacol Sore Throat.

ONE. One is all I needed to kill the last of the throat issue. Grade: A.

Natural Remedy 8) Sleeve. Faucet nostril started soon after and, as usual, I defaulted to my sweater sleeve because I don’t own Kleenexes.

After rubbing my booger holes raw, I sprung $1.49 for…

Natural (it came from trees, right? Remedy 9) Puffs Plus Lotion.

These are the sweetest things since Sweet Unborn Skeletor Baby Greene. Grade: A+

Happy Holidays and may your enflamed nostrils find the heavenly embrace of a Puffs Plus Lotion hankie.