"Sick and Tired"

From the time I was very young, I have been prone to catch every possible cold or flu bug that comes within 100 feet of me!  I cough, I sneeze, I blow, I ache, I can't hear, I can't breathe, I can't swallow....every cold I get has some combination of any/all of the symptoms above. Even though I'd been getting flu shots, I still caught the flu from time to time.  My colds generally last a minimum of 10-11 days until they are completely gone.  Sometimes they go as long as two weeks.  Flu goes longer.  Once a cold actually morphed into pneumonia!  That was not fun at all!

I have had colds or flu at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, at shows/ performances, on first dates, during auditions, at weddings (luckily not my own!), during "finals", and every conceivable occasion of note!  Not at all of them, you understand, but often enough!  That, of course, is to say nothing of the colds I have gotten on UNimportant days too!  When I get a cold it isn't usually a couple of days of coughing and sneezing, like a lot of people get.  Oh No!  My colds are World Class!  I am usually miserable, uncomfortable, and a mess.  I am not attractive when I'm sick.  My eyes get puffy, my nose is red, my lips get chapped, even my hair turns into a bird's nest!  I'm cranky, short-tempered, and all I want to do is sleep.

The truth of the matter is that I got "Sick and Tired" of being sick a long time ago!

Then about three years ago it stopped.  I didn't get a cold all winter.  I didn't get any symptom of flu or a cold in the spring, no summer cold!  No holiday was spoiled for me by some miserable blowing, sneezing, coughing sickness.  None!  I haven't had any sort of a cold or flu for 3 years!   Really!  Three whole years!  That is the longest stretch of "healthy" I've ever had in my whole life.  It seemed so unnatural that I asked my doctor about it.  I couldn't understand why all of a sudden I was staying healthy!  She said that maybe I had already caught all the cold bugs out there and was now immune.  At first I thought she was kidding, but she wasn't! 

Evidently each cold is caused by a different type of virus or bacteria and you build immunities when you are suffering from whatever one you have.  And eventually, you can build a high enough immune level that you can't catch one you've already had!!  How about that?  It's sort of a prize for suffering through all those times I've been sick!  It's kind of like that Social Security thing....if you pay in enough during the year, you get X weeks where you don't have to pay anything at all, at least until the next tax year begins!

It has been a great three years of being healthy.  I have loved every minute!  Other members of my family would catch something and be miserable.  They would pass it around among themselves for a while, but I never caught anything!!  Whoo Hoo!  This was living!  I had paid enough!

Late last week the Big Guy started to not feel well .  (Poor guy, he has had more things wrong healthwise in the last six months than ever before in his lifetime!)  He said his throat felt scratchy and sure enough by the next day, he was coughing, blowing, sneezing....the whole nine yards! 

I felt fine.... for the first 4 days I felt absolutely fine!!  He was still congested, and coughing, etc., etc., but I felt fine.   Ahhhh, dodged another one!

Yesterday I woke up with a scratchy throat.  Oh No!  Today I added in a little coughing.  I may cry!  Maybe this is just one stray little bug that somehow missed me through the years.  Tomorrow will tell the tale.

 I'm hoping that yesterday wasn't the start of my new "tax year" so to speak.  I think I've had enough colds!  There can't be too many more of them out there that are new to me, right?  Because even though I haven't had a cold for 3 years, after two days with a scratchy throat, I'm already "Sick and Tired" of being sick....Again!