So, here I was, on day three of the fever and then the head cold symptoms started in. I really felt crummy, totally yucky, but I was still managing to do most everything I needed to do, even with a fever. OTC drugs are great! But now the weekend was at an end. I was hoping that my fever would mostly be burned out as Monday rolled around and that I would be able to cope—hoping that the worst of it was over. I hadn’t been sleeping much at all but now the coughing started up and I knew nothing of sleep all that night.

Hundreds of years ago, when people started coughing, they shut them up in a box and left them there until they either got over it or died. That way they a) didn’t spread their germs and b) didn’t keep the family awake with their coughing. I don’t think that it is an accident that the box people are buried in is called a coffin, or should I say, coughin’? At any rate, by mid morning, my fever was still raging, my head cold symptoms were raring to go and congestion suddenly gripped my chest so hard that my lips and fingernails were turning blue. Deciding this wasn’t a good thing, I called my husband at work and asked him to come home ASAP.

Being unable to really breathe is not a good feeling. I felt pretty panicky. Thinking that getting into the shower and steaming my lungs open would be a good thing to do while I waited for my husband to get home, I turned the water as hot as I could stand. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I got out and crumpled to the floor. Apparently the hot water spiked my temperature to new highs. I lost my breakfast, repeatedly, and when I was able to once again stand, I was as gray as a newspaper. But, hey, at least my lips were no longer blue. To be continued . . .