Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Kindergarten and the Cold

When I started working as a kindergarten aide, I placed bets to see how long it would take me to get sick. Gotta love those little tykes, they come up to ask a question and then sneeze or cough right in my face. Ugh!

I think the average days missed for sickness is 4 among our five-year-olds this year. The teacher, herself, missed an accumulative week before the Christmas holidays. I sailed right through with nary a sniffle.

I feel pretty proud that it’s taken so long—I waited until mid January before coming down with a cold. Problem is that I can’t seem to shake it. My head is a liquid bucket of congestion, I can’t breathe, my ears are plugged and my voice sounds like I’ve been a smoker since the age of five (and I’ve never smoked at all).

Between the Tylenol Cold (am and pm), Amoxicillin, prescription nasal spray, Mucinex D, Cold Calm, Immune Defense, cough drops, throat lozenges, Listerine and vitamins—as well as the Lysol spray and Oust, I’ve ingested and used enough drugs and products to stock a small pharmacy this past month. Sheesh! I’ve also helped eat a bushel of fresh oranges and lay out in the sun.

Embarrassing moment—I went to church Sunday and realized I hadn’t brought any throat lozenges for that annoying little tickle that sometimes appears in my throat. I started using Mentos and got so choked up it almost took a half hour for me to stop coughing. Someone finally gave me two cough drops and it took both of them to finally calm the cough.

With only one day of work missed and two visits to the doctor, I think I’m finally on the mend—again. I thought the same thing two weeks ago. This time I think I have the weather on my side. The sun is out and it’s warmed up a bit. We even bought a couple of tomato plants at Costco in anticipation of spring and I can already taste those home-grown tomatoes.

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