Rant #2,985: Cold Turkey

I had a weird day yesterday.
 
Notice I did not say a good day, just a weird day.
 
My allergies had been really killing me, or so I thought, for about the past two weeks or so.
 
On Wednesday, it kind of reached a head, and I figured that I had to have something other than allergy problems for the past two weeks—
 
Maybe it was COVID???????
 
I went through this scenario in my brain for several hours … even though I received three shots of the so-called “vaccine,” perhaps after all this time, I finally got stung.
 
Since no one in my immediate family—my son, my wife and my mother—have gotten COVID, I figured that the prudent thing to do was to go to the nearest walk-in medical place at 8 a.m. in the morning and get tested.
 
So that is what I did.
 
And I am happy to say that I don’t have COVID, but what I do have is your average, garden-variety cold, something that I haven’t had in several years.
 
(I guess all the mask wearing did have a protective effect on me.)
 
So, at times, my nose is running like a faucet, I cough here and there, and my sneezes are pretty vicious, but the funny thing is that this cold is a weird one … I pretty much generally feel fine, no fever at all, and believe it or not, I can taste everything.
 
Usually when I get a cold, I can’t taste a thing, and I am a little off kilter, but this time around, I have to say that this is one strange cold I have had, beginning probably two weeks ago when I thought it was my allergies and finally coming out the other day.

(Are the COVID shots mitigating the effects of the cold? Could be ... ?)
 
Sure, the full COVID test still has to come back, but even the medical person who administered it to me told me flat out that I had a cold; all my other vital signs are fine, my lungs were clear, and I don’t have COVID.
 
Now to get rid of this thing, which honestly comes and goes during the day—I notice that some periods of the day my nose is running like a faucet, but I can go hours at a time without blowing my nose at all.
 
Sometimes I am a little hoarse, other times my voice is back to normal.
 
I have a good appetite, and like I said, I can taste everything.
 
Very strange indeed.
 
So after that diagnosis, my wife and I went food shopping, got sicker at the prices than this cold or anything else could ever make me feel, and I came home, ready to do my freelance job, and found out right before the fact that they wanted me to cover a virtual conference, which is exactly what I did for the next few hours.
 
Between the listening to what was going on and the writing up of this thing, I did not finish work yesterday until right before 8 p.m., but in the middle of all of this, I was sent another story that I have to do, a long interview, so that will bind me up for a good portion of the morning …
 
And I guess the large scads of money that I am making from these endeavors is keeping me going, because even though I do have this nagging cold and feel OK with it, I am running on fumes at the moment, and I am really looking forward to the weekend.
 
This cold has affected my sleeping pattern, and if I get a few hours of sleep each night, I am ahead of the game.
 
Today, I woke up at about 4 a.m. after about six hours or so of sleep, but on other nights, I am up virtually all night, so I have to say that today was better in that regard.
 
As I am writing this, it is near 6 a.m., my normal waking time, and my wife will soon be up, with my son to follow at 8 a.m. as he gets ready for work, which I will take him to and pick him up from like I always do.
 
Then he has basketball tonight, bowling tomorrow, and I personally won’t fully slow down until tomorrow afternoon at about 3 p.m. or so.
 
Hopefully by then, this cold will have subsided, and I will be on the road to recovery, but who knows … this is one strange cold I have this time around.
 
I just hope that I don’t/haven’t infected others here, and that this thing that I have goes away as quickly as it came, and it has already stayed around way too long.
 
I guess it is just another notch on this horrid year that I have had … I thought I was turning the corner as summer ended—we finally closed down the pool, thank goodness—but the bad luck that I have had simply continues unabated.
 
But Yom Kippur is coming up, I will probably fast as I always do, and maybe the coming and going of that holiday will help me to wipe away any sins I made during the previous year, and I will kick this thing and be on the road to better health.
 
I sure hope so, because even though I guess what I have could have been worse, it isn’t much fun as it is.
 
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday … hopefully closer to a full recovery by then.
 
Wish me luck ... and even more luck to those being directly impacted by Hurricane Ian in Florida and the rest of the Southeast.