Tagging along with the holiday cheer is the infamous flu season, bringing with it a slew of terrible symptoms. But honestly even worse than the flu is the common cold, whose prevalence and existence through multiple different types of viruses makes it incredibly underrated. As a person who tends to just catch colds two-three times a year and miss the fevers and big illnesses (knock on wood), here are some reasons why I think that colds are THE WORST.
You feel as if your body is falling apart at the seams, but you’re not “sick enough” to miss class/get extensions. Not running a fever? Not vomiting blood? Not dying? Well then you’re well enough to come to class and function.
Your friends/acquaintances avoid your germ-spreading presence but don’t give you sympathy. They cower when you cough, and won’t sit next to you because you’re an incubus of germs and they “don’t want to get sick.”
The cough attacks. One minute you’re dandy as a dandelion, and the next, you feel as if there are 1000 spiders in your throat that’s persistently tickling it and spinning a web of phlegm. It’s horrible, and it doesn’t matter how much water you drink. You just have to cough until it stops or until your lungs rupture, at which point the tickle is still there.
Constantly running nose. Either you’re sniffling, or you’re blowing, and both are kind of annoying. Especially during section, and the wet, loud sound is not at all delightful for anybody.
(If I could do what Rachel Green was doing during section, I totally, totally, 120% would.)
The end of the world is here when you realize that you’ve forgotten your tissues. THE. END. OF. THE. WORLD. You know you’re going to need them. You can feel mucus buildup in your nose. But you’ve been a fool and left those tissues at home.
The food doesn’t taste as good. Because you’ve lost part of your olfactory sense, you’ve lost part of your taste. None of your favorite foods taste they way they do in your healthy memory, and nothing is the same anymore.
But fear not, because as terrible as colds are, they really make you appreciate health and being able to breathe nasally once they’re over. If you’re still trying to get over the cold that’s been following you like a shadow for the past month, check out Andrea’s article on how to get rid of those nasty, lingering colds: (http://www.hercampus.com/school/harvard/eliminating-your-lingering-cold)