DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Blind-sided by a cold, I have time to plan my defense strategy

For a month, my daughter, Hannah, has had the sniffles. Before that, my husband, and my son, home from college, also had colds. I marveled at my own health.
Despite a nagging backache, which has lingered for months, I have been otherwise in great shape. Nary a runny nose or an itchy throat had come my way.
Of course, no pompous imagining goes unpunished. Least of all, those involving the cold virus. As of last Friday a little tickle in the throat has become the mother of all colds.
So, the day I wrote this was spent almost entirely on the floor of the family room, with me draped in a sleeping bag so old it is nearly a family heirloom. I had two bags of cough drops by my side -- a bag of Halls Breezers I got free with a rebate and a bag of generic mentholyptus, lemon, honey, eucalyptus cough drops that would melt paint off a wall if I stuck one there.
Home remedy
John, my husband, suggested I drink vinegar and salt and wrap up in a blanket as he did when he was a child. "You sweat that cold right out of you by the next morning," he says each time I get sick. I smile and suffer through my misery in my own way.
This means taking echinacea pills from the health food store and drinking cups and cups of tea with honey. It means Cream of Wheat and toast for dinner. It means gargling with saltwater and watching so much television that my neck hurts from doing nothing and lying prone.
John also pushes zinc lozenges because, he says, "They knock the cold right out of you." But one night, years ago, I fell asleep with a zinc lozenge in my mouth. After eight hours of sleep, I awakened and a portion of the drop was still on my tongue. For the next full day, my mouth tasted like I'd necked with the Tin Man. Not worth it, even for the kind of colds I get.
In the throat
Since I was a tyke, my colds have hit me right in the throat. More than once, the family doctor threatened to remove my tonsils. I got strep three times when I was a kid, and even recall my dad carrying me into the hospital as a result once. After that, my tonsils have always been the first to react.
This time around, I'm spraying Chloroseptic onto my throat. That's not as easy as it sounds. You can't get it to exactly the right place (they ought to have a nozzle like WD-40 has -- a long tube to stick down your throat), so you get numb adenoids, tonsils, gums and tongue, and a pouting upper lip. Every two hours I repeat this anesthetizing.
What's really rotten, however, is that, though my cold germs spend days congregating in my throat, traveling eventually through the catacombs that connect my ears and agonizing me there, they always ultimately "break." At this point, they become like the colds of normal people -- replete with sputtery sneezes, peeling noses and chapped upper lips.
So, I get to wait while my throat and ears ache, for the inevitable final act, wondering how on earth I'll attend to the real world when all I really want to do is sneeze and sleep.
Nothing good
Plus, colds have no payoff when you're an adult. No one wants to baby you -- not like your mom did. For the health of the family, my mom isolated us in our bedrooms. But for my mental health, she brought me a television, toys, meals in bed, and her company for card games and whatnot.
As an adult, I may get a pass on grocery shopping and dog walking, but nobody's cutting out paper dolls with me. I'm stuck watching the Three Stooges festival or an infomercial at 4 a.m. when my throat hurts so much I can't sleep. Chloroseptic, where are you?
But it is a lesson, I think. Next time I am feeling wonderfully well, I will make an effort not to notice it. Then perhaps, the cold germs will not notice me. It's a thought. In the meantime, I wonder how Moe and Larry are doing. ...
murphy@vindy.com