I recently flew back to my home town next to a young man that obviously had a cold. To my relief he’d always cough in his sweater. He seemed to have the sniffles. I can only guess he was using his sweater as a giant hanky too.
Well, exactly 36 hours later I woke up with a head cold from hell. I went through more than a box of tissues in 12 hours. I try not to think of that gross sweater. For me there’s no such thing as a simple cold. I’m fighting bronchitis, fever and asthma complications now.
I sympathize with him. I’m sure he just wanted to get home, but I so hate being crammed into a cattle car with sick people. Well, at least I’m home and can be treated by my family physician, but this will greatly reduce my productivity for several weeks, not to mention all the meds I’ve had to buy as a result of this.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I know the feeling. I'm asthmatic and in the past, it doesn't take much to get me on the road to bronchitis.
However, for the last year and a half, I've been on allergy shots & didn't need to go on industrial strength antibiotics, prednisone, the works because I'm not getting the damn bronchitis.
In general, planes & 1st grade classrooms are not the best place to avoid germs.
Yecch!
Get some carpenter's masks next time you travel. Generally speaking, it's the droplets of sputum that we don;t see that cause disease to spread.
If you wear a mask, you will be conscious of the number of times you touch your face.
Wash your hands before AND after every meal, after every casual human contact.
OMG I'm sounding like Monk. All paranoid…Only once did I have to travel on a flying missile with 2 sick kids. My alcohol-soaked napkin, followed by a few chasers, prevented the worst from happening. My frontal lobes hated me for a day.
Maybe next time you should drive or take a train if you can't handle a simple cold.