Area 151

I am once again sick. It’s been quite the winter for that on my part—even if you leave holiday knife-slips off the scorecard and concentrate on regular sorts of illnesses.
First, there was December’s bout of bronchitis, then January’s run with the evil cruise-ship tummy flu, and now 4 days of something-or-other.

Sunday and Monday I had fever with flu-like muscle aches and a dry hacking cough. By Tuesday morning, the fever seemed to have broken, but the congestion had begun, and the congestion is continuing merrily apace, with that unhappily familiar sensation of settling into my lungs. I won’t see the doctor till Friday morning, so no report till then about whether this becomes a full-blown case of bronchitis or if it stays on the friendly side of the antibiotic line.

Either way, this winter has been astonishingly worse for me than prior years—the worst, I think, since that 2003-2004 stretch during which I enjoyed a case of pneumonia.

And perhaps there are many causes for this. Overwork, exhaustion, stress, just plain bad luck. I’m choosing to blame one:

They changed my NyQuil.

Times were, I had a failsafe regimen of treating colds when I got ‘em. Advil Cold & Sinus for the days, NyQuil (cherry-flavored death) to knock me out and clear my head at nights. But now that you have to put pseudoephedrine behind the counter, Advil Cold & Sinus is scarce as hen’s teeth, and my NyQuil, well…

It isn’t even my NyQuil anymore. And if you’ve ever heard Denis Leary in No Cure for Cancer, you know what I’m saying.