My antibiotics are working, and by “working” I mean they are causing more bodily harm than good. At least my throat feels better. I guess an inability to even think about stomaching food is a small price to pay for the rapid decrease in soreness and fever that were keeping me down all week.
One thing this process has taught me is that I’d make an awful doctor. I mean, I went to the urgent care center yesterday complaining of flu-like symptoms but really only had two symptoms: sore throat and fever. There wasn’t much weakness, no coughing, sneezing, or anything like that. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop me from spending three days treating myself like a flu patient. This couldn’t have been further from the proper course of action. I even found out some really cool remedies on the Internet that I employed. Too bad none of them were necessary. Anyway, supposedly a lot of people are coming down with the flu now, so here are my ten best remedies for the flu, as practiced by me this week when I didn’t actually have the flu.
The list is, in a sense, broken down into two parts. Numbers 10-7 are reserved for stupid things that never, ever work. They’re just dumb remedies. 6-3 are more reasonable, but they obviously didn’t do much in my given situation. Only numbers 2 and 1 had any impact on my ability to survive this week, and they’re two of the most obvious remedies around. By the way, “chicken soup” isn’t on this list because if you think chicken soup is going to cure your cold or flu you’re either retarded or Jewish, maybe both.
Ten Stupid Remedies For The Flu That Never Was
10. NyQuil / DayQuil – I must have spent close to $25 on medicine this week, and whatever I took, it was for naught. These “LiquiCaps” tout their ability to relieve a variety of symptoms related to both cold and flu: aches, fever, cough, and nasal congestion. Too bad the only one I had was a fever, and the one day I took both DayQuil and NyQuil my fever reached the highest reading of the week. So much for its ability to cure whatever-the-fuck this virus I have is called. I swear to god it sounded like the second half of its name was “vagina”. I even started laughing when the doctor said it.
09. Vitamin C – Yeah, a lot of good 1000MG of vitamin C is going to do when my immune system isn’t fighting off Influenza. I don’t think there’s really any way that those citrus-y pills were going to help my body battle whatever forces were trying to keep me down. By the way, a recent Wikipedia search (performed in real-time) shows that the best animal sources of vitamin C are calf liver (raw), beef liver (raw), oysters (raw), cod roe (fried) and pork liver (raw). I understand that sentence isn’t really that funny on its own, but it becomes a lot funnier when I tell you that I originally read the word “calf” as “cat”, and wrote a whole paragraph about how we should go around eating stray cats’ livers for the vitamin C content. Oh well, I guess that paragraph will have to wait until we find a worthwhile vitamin or mineral that is synthesized naturally in cat livers.
08. Airborne – Yeah, a lot of good this shit does when you don’t actually have the flu or a cold. In fact, I’m not even sure it would work well if I did have the flu or a cold. As far as I can tell, Airborne is useless. Human life would go on just fine if it never existed.
07. Zicam – Not only does this not work when you’re dealing with a virus entirely different from Influenza, but after reading all those stories about how the manufacturer has paid out over $12 million to patients who lost their sense of smell and taste after using Zicam, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to touch the stuff ever again. I could come down with the cold/flu from hell, I’ll take my chances without using a product that could very well damage 30% of my senses even if used properly.
06. Rest – Everyone always says to get plenty of rest when you tell them you have the flu. Well, that’s what everybody told me, but how the fuck was I supposed to rest when my throat felt like someone was stabbing me each time I swallowed? I think last night allowed me the most consecutive hours of sleep I got all week, and I’m not exactly proud of the fact that I slept for almost four hours before awakening for the first of many times.
05. Cold Shower / Lukewarm bath – On Tuesday when my fever spiked, I tried to take a cool bath, but it didn’t stop me from shaking, it didn’t stop me from being scalding hot, and it didn’t make me look any less flushed. It just made me wet and made my hair look a wet, ratty mess before bed. The next day I, of course, had Nicci purchase a bottle of rubbing alcohol in case my fever ran high again, but we didn’t use it. More money spent on remedies that weren’t necessary.
04. Orange Juice / Cranberry Juice – Everyone says drink plenty of fluids, and that juices with high vitamin contents are really good for your immune system. Everyone knows about orange juice, and Ian told me about the wonders of cranberry juice. Well, when I spoke to the doctor yesterday she told me that I should have just been drinking water, because those drinks with their citrus content were probably causing more pain than relief. Whoops! Thanks a lot, old wives tales!
03. Hydrogen Peroxide – I read this thing about how the flu enters your body through the ear canal, and that applying a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to your ears could actually kill the virus. I was excited to try it, and put drops in every hour or two until the bubbling sound disappeared. When it did, I was convinced I was on the road to recovery. That is, of course, until the doctor told me that I didn’t have the flu. So much for the hydrogen peroxide remedy!
02. Aspirin – They tell you to take it for fever and pain. It kind of worked! Of course, all the Aspirin I came in contact with was expired, so I had to go out and buy another bottle of Aspirin, setting me back a few more dollars. I distinctly remember my pocket being flush with cash after dinner Monday night when I charged dinner to my credit card and took cash from everybody, but I guess all that cash was spent on juices I shouldn’t have been drinking, soups that served no purpose, fruit I never ate, and medicines that weren’t needed. Nice going, Evan. Whatever, Aspirin definitely works. Stark differences in temperature readings were evident upon two pills every four hours.
01. Water – On Tuesday alone I consumed over 100 fluid ounces of water, and that number went up on Wednesday. Unfortunately for me, it really hurt to swallow. But the water helped. I felt hydrated, it kept me from feeling weak, and actually enabled me to walk to the store one day to buy more water. Who walks to the store to buy water with the flu?! (Answer: Someone who doesn’t have the flu). Whatever, I also was urinating like a motherfucker, thinking I was flushing the flu out of my system. Again, unfortunately for me, I didn’t actually have the flu.
