This article was originally published on January 16, 2013. In that I am suffering a similar ailment this day, just over a year later, I wish to illustrate that thus far science and medicine have made no strides in curing this condition.
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When I woke up Thursday morning I felt like a million bucks. I was bright, alert, and anxious to get on with the day. I was looking forward to going to work and in fact did just that. But as the day progressed, I noticed some subtle changes in my euphoric outlook on life. First I began sneezing. . . .a lot. Some time back I was able to relocate from a cubicle to a small office. This probably helped to isolate me from my co-workers and may have spared them the terrible fate that awaited me. By evening as I sat in my recliner and watched TV I noticed a burning sensation in my eyes, I was drowsy, and food started to take on a distinct, unpleasant after taste. Then came Friday morning.
Friday morning was horrible. The alarm went off at the usual time, 3:45 AM. I immediately started to look around for the Mack truck that had repeatedly hit me during the night. All my body parts hurt. Even body parts that I had forgotten I owned hurt. (Oh hello body part, I had forgotten about you). My head and chert were congested, my vocal cords had taken a sabbatical, and my stomach was reminiscing about various foods I had consumed the day before. I reset the alarm to wake me at a time appropriate for me to alert the kind people who I ride to labor with each day that I would not be standing in my usual spot and made a hasty retreat back to bad. As I drifted off to sleep I had the realization that I had a highly contagious and incurable disease. I had a cold!
It amazes me that in the modern-day world where we have put men on the moon, where we have landed a rover on Mars, where we have conquered the plague, smallpox, and bedbugs (for a while) that modern science comes up short-handed when it comes to a cure for the common cold. I think that a cure would cause an economy growth spurt that would turn the world around. No longer would there be hundreds of thousands of lost production hours as the workers say at home feel miserable. Production would flourish, the GNP would flourish, and the economy would flourish. Any money spent on research to cure the cold would be quickly recovered by the booming economy. So what is the holdup? Why has it not happened? What do we have to do to make it happen. Come on scientist, it’s just a little virus, what are you afraid of? And now I am going back to bed.
Those are my thoughts, what are yours?
5 thoughts on “Unclean! Unclean!”
I agree with Karen! Who said it was just a cold. When I was sick around Christmas time I went to the doctor to try to ward off something that sounds very similar to what you are describing in time for Christmas. Unfortunately a week later I was no better and went on a Zpack,prescription cough syrup and an inhaler and I still missed Christmas! So be careful and don’t rush your recovery!
Nah, its not serious, it is just a cold. I know because that is what I was told.
It sounds like you had more than a cold, it sounds like the flu. I hope you are better now.
Yuk! Hope you’re feeling better. The reason we can’t cure the common cold or flu is that it’s not just “the” cold bug or flu. Because of their RNA genome, these viruses mutate at a rapid rate, so it’s always a different one. If you catch one you’ve had before, you don’t get sick. Evolution is powerful. (Sorry, I haven’t taught a biology class for some months. Had to get that out.)
So all the scientists have to do is develop an anti-virus with quickly mutating properties to match what the virii are all doing. So what’s the problem?