"Just a cold"

I feel like Lazarus -- dazed, shaking off my shroud and bindings, blinking in the light of day, and wondering, "What hit me?"

Well, that's an exaggeration.  On the long spectrum of human illness and suffering, I've barely inched my way on board.  Having measles in first grade was probably the "high" point of my acquaintance with human illness, ameliorated by ample middle class comforts, bowls of chicken soup, and the attention of a loving family.  

So, of what do I now complain?

The common cold.

"Serious" illness is judged by what you're used to, right?  Everything is relative.  Me, I haven't had even a common cold for several years.  Occasionally, I've felt one coming on, but, before I could really worry, I'd suddenly snap back to normal.  I made the reasonable deduction that I had a killer immune system, one that was routinely flexing its muscle and freezing invading viruses in their tracks.  And maybe I did, and it was.

Or maybe I'd just kept myself so cosseted in masks since the winter of 2020 that my "killer" immune system hadn't really put to the test.  Sort of like the Russian army.

But I'm wandering.  There's something else I want to mention. In my last post, some five days ago, I explained that I was about to have an upper molar extracted.  Let me tell you that oral surgery is pretty amazing nowadays.  I had the option of general anesthetic, which I declined.  I'm glad I did.  As in most dental procedures, the worst part was the shot of Novocaine, or whatever local anesthetic he was using.  After that, it was just a physical struggle between my extremely pleasant Asian-American DDS/MD and my tooth.  Brute strength.  I was merely an interested observer to the prize fight being conducted inside my mouth.

The tooth lost, of course, and the struggle lasted no more than ten minutes.  I was put on a regimen of ibuprofen which, after a day, I converted to Tylenol.

But even as the good doctor was struggling with my tooth, the insidious cold viruses were working their way through my system.  By the end of the day, I could hardly force myself to attend to the various post-op precautions prescribed by the doctor -- antibiotics, pain medication, saline mouth-washings.  My head was hurting, my nose was flowing like the Columbia River, I was coughing continually, and I was sneezing more times per day than I ever had before, at least within my memory.  I lay awake half the night; I slept half the day.

I was a mess.

The constellation of symptoms clearly suggested Covid.  Friday I had a PCR test run, which came back negative the following day.  I almost had hoped for it to be Covid -- at least my misery would have an impressive name.  I knew that a negative test result, even from a PCR test, can be undependable, and should be repeated after a day or so.  And so I thought I'd have myself retested today after the virus had become more virulent (so to speak) and detectable.

But this morning, I woke up rested.  Still coughing occasionally, still sneezing a bit, but obviously past the crisis stage of a cold and into my antibodies' mop-up operations.  I've felt fine all day -- still blowing and wiping my nose occasionally, but not every five minutes.  I went for my first walk, just before writing this little essay -- a mere one mile, a mile that left me exhausted and breathing a bit heavily.  But a mile that I wouldn't have attempted 24 hours earlier.

So, to paraphrase Dr. Freud, sometimes a cold is just a cold.  I look forward to being completely back to normal in another day or two.  And I've already planned a drive to the beach next Monday.

You just can't stop a guy with a Killer Immune System.  Said Lazarus, grinning as he walked into the bright sunlight.