Tag Archives: colds

After summer comes the… cold and flu season already?

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So, we had a mild-ish summer this year (which after several years in a row of breaking the previous hottest-summer-ever records was nice), and we had our usual not-quite-fall-yet weather for most of September, until the very end of the month where temperatures dropped, we got snow in at least one of the passes, and suddenly it feels a lot more like November than October. And, oh, yes, when I came down with a bad cold or flu three weeks ago, it seems so did half of my co-workers… and just as I thought I was getting over it, I get hit with another round.

The one upside, I think, to being sick for a few weeks with long work hours is that I was distracted for most of September about the proximity of my birthday. I did keep forgetting. I almost broke the rule my husband has imposed for years: From about a month before my birthday through Christmas, I’m not supposed to buy things for myself that other people might get me for my birthday. I can buy food, medicine, clothes, and other necessity types of things, but not books or movies or anything at has ever been on one of my wishlists. I didn’t break the rule… I just came close a few times. Because I kept forgetting what month it was.

And that’s a good thing because of what usually happens during September. See, two days after my birthday is the birthdate of my first husband, who died 22 years ago. And a few weeks before my birthday is the anniversary of the first date I ever had with my late husband. And most years when I realize that my birthday is coming up, that immediately reminds me of Ray’s birthday and the anniversary, and that often kicks off a bit of seasonal depression. Typically said depression doesn’t let up until mid-November: the anniversary of his death.

It isn’t always really bad. Sometimes it just means that for a that few months I’m prone to more moodiness than others.

This year it didn’t really hit until the day after his birthday… and so far it hasn’t been very bad. Or at least not bad as the misery of being sick. Not being able to get any sleep last night from the coughing, for instance.

Not that being miserable sick is necessarily any better, but what can you do?

Cure worse than the malady

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Kitten in a blanket.
I just want to stay under the covers.
Once again, because the pollen counts have been high, and some new species had begun releasing pollen, I hoped that the really awful symptoms that started last Tuesday was just really bad hay fever.

One of the last tattered shreds of my denial was stripped away when I started coughing at the office Thursday. Since a lot of other people were coughing that day, at least I can’t be solely to blame if a bunch of people are out sick, again.

Thursday evening my left ear clogged. By Friday morning I had a slight ear ache, a sore (rather than merely scratchy) throat, a cough the woke me up several times, and had been sweating all night, again.

Friday is normally a work from home day for me. The doctor was able to work me in fairly quickly. While the physician’s assistant said I had no fever (98.4 is a fever for me), when the doctor check later, she said, “98.4! That’s a fever for you!” because she’s seen how when I’m not sick I often had a temperature of 95 or lower.

She is fairly certain that I don’t have a bacterial infection in the ear and sinuses. She told me to avoid being around people until my fever was totally gone, as I was not just certainly contagions, by certainly very contagious.

Because of the cough, she was going to prescribe the usual codeine cough syrup, but while she was pulling the information up on the computer to send the prescription to my pharmacy, she noticed that my insurance now considers that a mid-level drug with the higher co-pay, but there’s a fancier version of the codeine cough syrup, that’s timed-released, and has antihistamines in addition to the cough suppressant, which is in the lowest tier for my insurance.

She said this stuff is more reliable for keeping the cough and other symptoms down long enough to get a good night’s sleep, and the only thing I would need to remember is that I shouldn’t take anything else that has antihistamines in it while I’m on the syrup.

Seemed like a good idea to me.

I’ve been having nightmares since I got on the stuff. Each time I took a nap Friday, and throughout Friday night, I had nightmares. One of them so disturbing that, even though I’m not normally a superstitious person, I can’t make myself say what it was for fear it might come true.

I re-read up on the side effects, and they did mention that hallucinations is a very rare side effect, but the old codeine cough syrup I’ve been on before lists that, as well. So I wasn’t complete sure it was the cough syrup that was doing it.

The doctor had told me I only needed to use it at night, but could use it in the day if the cough was bothering me. So I experimented not taking it in the daytime. I’ve been having to stop and nap every three or four hours since Friday morning, so I slept a couple times where none of the stuff was in my system.

No nightmares.

Late Saturday night I was coughing and had the sore itchy eyes, so I took a spoonful before going back to bed.

No coughing fits woke me in the middle of the night. But two different nightmares did.

So, I’m not sure that the benefit of no coughing fits waking me up is worth the downside of the nightmares. Admittedly, the night I was last coughing, I was woke up far more than two times with the coughing, sore throat, et cetera. I suppose that’s an improvement.

I think next I will trying taking only half a spoonful at bedtime?