The Never-ending Cold

When you are blessed with being the last one to catch the infamous cold bug there are some advantages.......... mostly I knew that it was gonna last a minimum of 3 weeks and that antibiotics don't seem to have any bearing on it........ it's a virus folks and only bacteria is helped by antibiotics !!!

So I have been coughing and blowing my way through - 12 days - of this bug........ cursing the people who shared it with me.... 

BUT yesterday morning I had had enough.  By yesterday morning my right eye felt swollen... even my teeth hurt.  I had no fever - but was pretty sure this damn bug was eating away at my sinuses on the right side.  

Now yes we have free medical care here in Quebec - for what it's worth.  If you like sitting in a clinic full of germs and various other bugs that are also floating around this time of year.  BUT by yesterday morning I was willing to risk long waits and exposure to more bugs and dragged myself off to the local "walk-in" clinic.  

I got there at 9 a.m to standing room only !!  The place sounded like a TB clinic.  Almost everyone had surgical masks on.  I did not.  I figured they were all covered so I didn't have to suffer through attacks of "I can't breath!! with this stupid paper over my mouth"  so I skipped the mask.

I found one last chair in the corner against a freezing cold window....left my coat on... pulled out my Kobo........ loaded up my Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ........ and settled in for a long wait.

By the end of hour 1 my feet were frozen..........I figure they were trying to freeze the bugs.

By the end of hour 2 my name was called.  I couldn't believe it.  I figured (as they have their own triage method) I won the early call cause I wasn't dying........ or maybe I was...

The doctor spent - ummmmmmmm maybe 10 minutes with me - He told me about the cold bug that lasts a minimum of 3 weeks - that doesn't respond to any medication.  I told him I knew all that - but was there something he could recommend for the pain and suffering......... like hardship pay???

I guess he liked my sense of humour - he actually looked in my throat and in my ears and listened to my chest.  He declared I had THE cold.  Then he got some sadistic  joy pressing on my right eyebrow...... right eye socket... right jaw bone area.  He said I had developed a pocket of infection in my right sinuses that ran from my eyebrows to my jaw bone - duh ya think Doc??!!!  


He wrote out a prescription - but warned me - You won't get better from the cold with this.. but your sinuses should improve in 5 days.  


I was out of there in 2 1/2 hours - which according to everything I am hearing on the news is some sort of record!!  I was home by lunch time....... with my pills in hand.


So this cold that makes me sneeze and blow all day - and cough and choke all night is here for another week or so......... but in 5 days the pain in my face should be better..... 


I will NEVER EVER tempt the bug gods again by bragging how I didn't catch THE BUG that is floating around the germ factory where I work............ Not EVER again!!!