Well isn’t this just fine.
Here I was planning to go to sleep early and get up early for the Big Inaugural Trip To the Gym and as I sit working on my Order of Service for Sunday I feel a stuffy nose and sore throat creeping up.
This could be due to the fact that it’s freezing in the house although as recently as two weeks ago I was swimming at the beach. It could also be that I’m all up fluttery about church and can’t sleep very well compared to the deep Zzzs I rack up on vacation. And it COULD BE that the Red Sox are making me VERY UPSET like right now Eric Gagne who has adorable facial hair and cool glasses is DESTROYING US IN THE 8th INNING DEAR GOD PLEASE DO SOMETHING.
gotta go watch, more later, bye
okay I’m back.
I decided that I hate Eric Gagne’s glasses. Probably because he JUST WALKED ANOTHER GUY,TYING THE GAME IN THE 8TH.
Back to my cold (with one ear listening to the TV):
Do you ever use Airborne? Walgreens makes a version called “Wal-Borne,” one of which I just popped in the hopes that it might work its magic. It’s a magical combination of a thousands herbs and minerals that fizz and go right into your bloodstream and make you ALL BETTER. They just NIP that cold in the bud. At least that’s what I’m hoping.
Lesson learned. When the church start-up season hits, I need to heed the advice of the cook in Sarah Miles’ wonderful memoir Take This Bread and “slow down to speed up.” It’s also a simple fact that hugging and kissing over 100 people on Sunday (and kissing a lot of babies) is bound to leave me susceptible to some germages.
Tips for preachers suffering from a cold:
1. Stay hydrated. You can speak over a stuffy nose. Take aspirin or Advil for the sore throat (and spray with Cepacol or a similar product) and keep a glass of hot tea and honey in the pulpit. Better yet, put it in a mug so people don’t think you’re having a whiskey, for God’s sake.
If you speak from the diaphragm and not the throat you can project just fine through a head cold. Unless you have actual laryngitis, don’t be afraid to speak up and even to sing! Whispering can actually damage your vocal chords — not a good idea.
Part of staying hydrated means avoiding Sudafed and other drying medicines on Sunday mornings. I know it sounds counter-intuitive and that you don’t want to preach sounding like Edith the Operator (“one ringy-dingy”), but believe me, better to sound a bit stuffy than to get all crackly and hurt your chords.
2. Wash your hands often and keep them away from your face. Don’t be like PeaceBang and chew your nails like a fiend when you’re reading or driving.
3. Julio Lugo just homered! My God, there’s hope!!
4. I know I don’t need to tell you this but really, get to bed early if you’re coming down with something.
5. Keep your head and neck warm. I got all sweaty under the covers last night but my wet head was freezing when I woke up. For some truly scientific reason I don’t understand having to do with body temperature and resistance to germage, it’s not just an old wive’s tale that you should stay warm.
6. If you’re very tired and the Red Sox are losing by one run in the 9th inning, you should try to just go to bed.
7. If the Red Sox LOSE BY ONE PATHETIC POINT BECAUSE TERRY FRANCONA DOESN’T HAVE THE SENSE GOD GAVE A HAMSTER TO TAKE ERIC GAGNE OFF THE MOUND AFTER HE WALKED THAT ONE GUY, don’t feel that you have to go into the kitchen and stab yourself in the eye with a fork. Take another 1000 mgs of Vitamin C and go to bed already.
gods, you crack me up. No stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork, dammit.
The thing about Airborne is that you never know if you would have been just fine without it. I did use it when we were enduring lots of air travel and I had a big choral concert and a solo recital coming up all at the same time last spring, and I did not get sick. But I was also doing all of those other careful things like drinking more water and oj, and getting more sleep. So who knows.
I have friends who swear by Cold-eez once you’ve actually gotten the cold — they’re truly disgusting zinc lozenges, but apparently they can cut recovery time way down. I can’t quite bring myself to choke ’em down, though, so that’s entirely second-hand. 😉
Thinking good health vibes in your direction…
I’m also swear by Cold-Ease zinc lozenges. It’s true they taste disgusting (especially the citrus ones; the cherry ones are bearable), but they work like a charm for me. The earlier you take them the better – i.e. the moment you think you just *might* be getting a cold. I also recently tried Halls Defense, which seem to be similar and also seemed to prevent me from getting the cold I thought might be sneaking up on me.
Feel better soon!
First of all, I share your pain of being a Red Sox fan. I recently had a “friend” ask me to pray for the Yankees (when they were in Boston), since I was in that business. I told him in no uncertain terms was I in the business of EVER praying for the Yankees!
And on the health front, there must be something going round the country because I know of at least 5 other people with colds. I fight mine as soon as I think it’s coming on–which I did last week–with echinacea. At the moment, despite seminary, NYC subway and 10-year-old babysitting charge germs, I’m cold-free.
Feel better…and go Sox!
Airborne is also good when you have a really bad hangover. Or so I’ve heard…!
It seems early in the fall for colds, but my household was sick this week too.
On a completely other subject, we had an anniversary service in one of my churches this week, and it was hectic – with extra musicians, and two worship leaders, and I’m still finding my feet under me.
There were moments of confusion, or at least uncertainty for the participants, and at one point I found myself at the pulpit with the urge to make a self-disparaging joke… but I remembered your list of mistakes from female ministers, and how much the scatterbrained one reminded me of myself. I took a deep breath, and continued with the order of service without comment. It felt really good.
@Michele, you are my INSPIRATION!! God BLESSYA, child. Because I let out with such an irreverent blooper my first Sunday back in the pulpit that I still haven’t forgiven myself for. A lot of people thought it was cute and funny but it’s like, “SHUT UP, WEINSTEIN!” I expect A+ from myself (as we all do) and I’m just hating that I opened my fat mouth.
@Jess: But I heard that Cold-eeze can ruin your SMELLING!! Because zinc can make you not be able to smell, that’s what I heard! So I stopped using the stuff.
I love Airborne. I especially love the kind that comes pre-crushed in little paper tubes, made to pour into water bottles but just fine in your glass, too. It dissolves so much better than the tablets.
I went through two boxes of the stuff during Candidating week last Spring, when I had to shake hundreds of hands (and I felt like I was coming down with something driving from NC to NY to begin the week, which would not have been good). It also helped me stay hydrated. Water-soluble vitamins (B-complex, C) are good things.
Dear PB, please do feel better. You seem to have a touch of a fever, too, as is evidenced by your delusions that the Red Sox will actually hold on to win the AL East.
Go Yankees.
with love,
Michael
PB–
Hope you feel better, but I’ll stay away for now. Love your Red Sox rant. Kinda like the one running around in my head.
And, Michael–
Sounds like you are coming down with a touch of delusional thinking… you should take something for that.
Go Sox!
There was no joy in Red Sox Nation South either, lemme tell you. GO SOX! But I am broad-minded and have a couple of deep interfaith friendships with Yankees fans. Now that’s interreligious living. (See PeaceBang’s other blog.) The mistake I once made though was to have a relaaaationship with a Yankees fan (many moons ago). I should have known that one was doomed.
Anyway… I too came down with an early fall, yea even late summer cold/sinus/headache/fluish thing, in my case because I work on a campus and the little darlings all got sick the second week of school instead of their usual third week of the semester. My recommendation is sleep, sleep, sleep (yes, I had to cancel out of some things but I couldn’t function, and I would have been even more sick had I not begged out and found someone to substitute for me – this was no minor sneezy sniffle) and drink lots of water and juices and cut out the dairy (dairy causes mucus) and anything sugary. Finally I ended up taking the homeopathic remedy Oscillococcinum, which technically is a flu remedy and not a cold remedy but I felt so sick it seemed necessary, and in fact it did help, a lot.
If you are into homeopathic remedies I have also found that for a simple sore throat (not for the headachy sniffle snuffles with fever) Mercurius (Mercurius Solubilis or Mercurius Vivus) will nip that thing right in the bud.
Don’t watch ball games when you’re sick. It increases stress – at least the ones like the one PB describes — except I’m glad you watched it, PB, because I was howling with laughter (and sympathy) reading you.
Also, for maintenance and prevention: wash hands, wash hands, wash hands. Like a combo of a physician and an obsessive-compulsive. I did that last year and also did my laundry more often (which I realize is bad for the planet) e.g. washing scarves (mufflers) and gloves and hand towels twice as often as the year before, and I got sick NOT ONE TIME all winter AND I hadn’t had a flu shot. The year before I had a flu shot and got sick three times. Go figure. Same job. I say the hand-washing and garment- and towel- washing and -changing helped. The hugging and kissing quantities didn’t change.
I love Oscillococcinum. Last fall I felt something coming on and I took my regular vitamin, emergen-c (basically a bolus of B and C vitamins and some other stuff) and Oscillococcinum along with about a liter of water and a light dinner, and went to bed. All night I sweated and had wild dreams, but when I awoke it was gone.
Handwashing is very important (as is hand lotion, because all that handwashing makes little cuts that are actually ways germs get in of course).
Three other things that I swear by: cutting out sugar (no juice, just water and very light food), opening all the windows for a few hours to recirculate the air, and some bleach water to wash bleachable sheets, towels, and the kitchen (a very mild bleach solution works fine–say a tablespoon of household bleach in a pint of water. This solution breaks down into a very non toxic sodium solution so it’s relatively earth friendly.)
I sleeped a lot and I got better!! yay!
Just an FYI … Over in the “natural” tea section, there’s an herbal tea called “Throat Coat.” If you wake up on Saturday with NO VOICE, this stuff is miracle in a cup. It’s a little weird — kind of viscous/slippery — but not gross. Amazing, amazing stuff. The very next day, I was able to preach with gusto, and no hoarseness.
I am so in sympathy with your Red Sox fanaticism that I cannot even react to the whole cold thing. It seems that Francona is just letting us all twist in the wind and the only solution is to take a glass of wine to bed and get up when we start to pick ourselves up out of the gutter (assuming we can) when the playoff begin. Thanks so much for you column, some times it gets me through the day.
I so sympathize with your Red Sox mania, I simply can’t worry about your cold. It seems to me the only solution is to take to your bed, pull the covers up and only come out when we start winning (please God) in the playoffs in October. Thanks so much for your blog,sometimes it is what keeps me this side of sanity in this crazy work we do.
Throat Coat is slippery elm bark. Very good stuff.
-m