Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Last night I started to feel a bit under the weather.

I've been sick so infrequently for the last decade, that I generally don't believe it when the symptoms first hit. If it does turn out to be one of those rare cases when I am actually coming down with a cold, I often don't realize it until I'm mid-martini. So when I woke up with a sore throat this morning, I vowed to attack the cold with all my might.

Of course western medicine has no answer to the common cold. Liquid, rest, blah blah blah. Look, there's a limit to how much resting I have time for in a day, and somehow guzzling many glasses of water doesn't seem to do the trick alone, so I was forced to turn to alternative medicine to fight this cold. I went with a three-pronged attack.

First, I've been pounding Zicam every couple of hours. The main cold-busting ingredient in Zicam is zinc. How much zinc is in Zicam? Well, uh, that's hard to tell. It's a homeopathic medicine which means there's roughly zero molecules of zinc in every dose. The directions say to take it every 3 hours until the symptoms disappear. Since this is a common cold we're talking about, and not say, lung cancer, those type of instructions are bound to be successful. I could eat Twinkies every 3 hours until my symptoms go away and that would work too. (Note to self, market Twinkam to homeopathic pharmacies). This cold will resolve itself eventually and there's little guarantee that zinc has anything to do with it, but what the hell.

I've also been taking Airborne, the medicine whose claim to fame is that it was developed by a second grade school teacher. Awesome. Obviously the best person to develop the precise formula to beat the rhinovirus, a goal that has eluded scientists for hundreds of years, is the same person who taught my daughter how to do subtraction. Just subtract the sore throat from my body, and voila! I'm entertained by the notion of amateurs developing medicines and I look forward to having my garbage man perform my eventual angioplasty.

The third prong of attack I've implemented has been prayer. I figure as long as I'm trying all the wacky stuff, I'd give that a shot too.

So, when my cold eventually goes away, should I thank Zinc? the school system? Or will it be a divine miracle?

Amen.

10 comments:

tinyhands said...

That is EXACTLY how I treated the cold I came down with a few weeks ago, except that I didn't take zinc, airborne, or pray.

Mike said...

I'm guessing your treatment cured your cold!

Sister--Helen said...

you are a mess....but amusing....

Mike said...

4th Sister, that's the nicest thing anyone from your family has ever said to me.

Sue said...

Dude: vitamin C (lots!), echinacea, zinc (which you have already), painkillers and nyquil at night. But, I'm probably too late to be of help.

Mike said...

Sue, I've never had any luck with echinacea, but I'm down with the rest of that list.

nrd2 said...

no, no -- nyquil! it's the best; it has alcohol in it. lots!

Mike said...

Oh, don't you worry, nrd2, I'm no stranger to Nyquil. It's my very good friend.

Anonymous said...

call a dr, and while you're at it, ask about the knees.

"Hey can you check this for me too?" is a great way to open the conversation. My life was saved because my mom asked at my sister's dr appt if it was normal for a 6 week old to turn ashen white while crying. (btw, no it isn't. I had a lung removed). Good news is no news as Dad says. Get some Vicodin to wash down the Nyquil. or the other way around.... it's late...

You scared me with the homeo stuff. Hope you're not really giving them money... a treated cold will last six days. An untreated cold lasts half a dozen days. It's up to you.

Mike said...

Meg, the last person I'll call about a cold is a doctor. They've dispensed all the wisdom they have to dispense on the topic. At least there's a one in a million chance that the homeopathic crap actually does something for the common cold. Regardless, I seem to have been magically cured. It must have been the prayer.