Thinking Out Loud
Gesundheit!

April 12, 2015
By: Diane Szczepanski

If a doctor treats your cold, it will go away in fourteen days. If you leave it alone, it will go away in two weeks.
Gloria Silverstein

Why does the common cold seem so uncommonly severe when you're the person who has it?

Oh, we tell others, "It's just a cold, rest and fluids and you'll feel fine in no time".

Yet we tell ourselves, "Surely, I have contracted the deadliest of viruses known to man and life as I know it shall come to a screeching halt until I am no longer reaching for tissues and chicken soup".

After watching co-workers, friends and families drop like the stock market during the Depression all winter long, I thought I had managed to escape it. Smugly proud that I must indeed be healthy than they.

Until 3:08 pm last Saturday afternoon, when I ushered in a hurricane of sneezes, followed by a congested head and tickley throat. I was doomed and being punished for my premature celebration of dodging viruses.

Thus, I have humbly learned three things:
Buy the softest tissues you can, fourteen days is a long time and never brag that you "never get sick".