Another casualty of the mucus wars

29 April 2015

The interminable hot drinks. The daytime television. The boxes of scented tissues. The medicated lozenges. All hallmarks of the great dis-ease of the common cold. I have become an unwilling home for the wrong kind of microbes. My to-do list has been reduced to: 1. Buy tissues. 2. Get better. 3. Resume normal life. I am now a captive inside my body which seems no longer under my sole command. I ask my body why it betrays me. I accuse it of 'hating me'. Why didn't you fight those bastards off? They are clearly bad news, yet you just let them walk right in?! I usually have tiny guards protecting my insides. But once a year they fall asleep on the job or become inexplicably crap at it. Sometimes I suspect mutiny. I am now a million tiny front lines and the trenches run white, thick and salty. While these cutthroat battles rage, I do nothing but observe — and relate in painstaking detail to anyone unfortunate enough to be in my presence — the effects of the disharmony they cause. I'm a country invaded. I'm not the soldier, but the war-torn, hacked-up land, writhing with befuddled soldiers and scared civilians. I must allow the fight to take place, then support the process of healing. But it annoys me intensely that I cannot be part of the battle. So I pretend to fight with my desperate array of impotent weapons. 'Superfood' smoothies, menthol Strepsils, steam sessions, vitamins. Boiled ginger. A dab of eucalyptus oil. For the most part they offer an illusory sense of control in this most undignified of wars. They reassure me that I will emerge from this sneeze-and-snooze scuffle the victor. Of course, on a rational level, I know there is always one way to ensure victory. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the nuclear bomb of the bacteria world — an antibiotic to obliterate all players, good and bad. Annihilation back to square one. No defence, no attack. Thus, the bacterial reset button was born. The problem is that pressing the reset button weakens my overall defences. Once that miniature army regroups, there is now a greater likelihood of infiltrating the mainframe. And so the campaign shifts focus to eliminating 'opportunities to attack'. Public transport is a likely site for an ambush. Not only are passengers attacked at a time when their surroundings encourage a diminished will to live, they are also crammed intimately into a small space, allowing

Join the conversation. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter Subscribe

AUSTRALIA

Another casualty of the mucus wars

Subscriber login