While 2017 kicked off without a ton of fan fair or mayhem in my house, the month of January is certainly taking its toll! The image above is what my bathroom counter’s been looking like for nearly six weeks!

My house munchkin caught a cold. No big deal right? I looked after her for nearly two weeks without a problem. And yes, I know, all the parenting books and courses and groups talk about how tough it is on our child/grandchild to feel sick. I’m not here to tell you how you should take care of a sick kid.

To hell with that… keep those sneezing, coughing, using their sleeves for a kleenex, snotty-nosed kids as far away from you as possible!!

Yeah. Kids feel crappy. But you know what? We adults are the ones who are fixing them food, getting their medicines, making sure they have cuddly blankets to snuggle up to, and in general, just waiting on them hand and foot while they sleep, eat, and feel bad.

Me? I don’t want their colds, flu, or any other type of illness that they bring home. I want the snot-nosed, fever running child to stay in bed and don’t touch me!!

And if you’re sitting here thinking how horrible that all sounds… you’ve never caught the “germs of death” from a toddler. But, if it makes you feel better, I DO regularly tell the munchkin that I love her, in spite of the fact I keep telling her to get away from me with her germies! 🙂

Hey. Don’t judge. I’m a single mom and I got REAL clear on something when my son was a toddler. If he caught a cold from me, he’d be fine in no time. And even while he was coughing and snotting up, he’d still be outside playing and having a great time but, if I caught one from HIM?! I may as well nuke the place because that was the ONLY way the germs were gonna die off before they knocked me on my ass for a month!

But I digress…

As I said, two weeks into her cold and I’m still standing. Until I shared my water with my son. Within two days, he and I were both sick. Nothing horrid mind you. It started with a sore throat, then moved to a cough and runny nose. Standard cold stuff right? I got this! And to keep the munchkin’s mom from getting sick (or my son going thru a second bout of it), I had them bringing me food to my room, setting it on the floor, and then leaving before I’d go pick it up at the door. Don’t even think I’m kidding!! That’s how germaphobes roll around here!! 🙂

Four weeks later, my son had improved tremendously. But the house munchkin and I? We were still coughing till we can’t breathe.

I finally had to break down and see the doctor. I needed the elephant off my chest. All the cough syrups, nasal decongestants, mucus relief tablets, cold medicines and more, were doing nothing to relieve my misery and let me breathe. I did find some relief in the old standbys while I was sleeping though… Vick’s VapoRub and a vaporizer are, and always have been, a saving grace in my family when cold season hits.

And, if you’re looking for one that’s cheap and works really well, check out the bottom of this post. I included the information about the one I just bought. It’s been a lifesaver!

Anyway, my doctor put me through a breathing test to check for asthma… because like my son and I, he agreed that I sounded like Muttley from the cartoon series, every time I laughed.

He prescribed five days of Prednisone and an inhaler to see if either would help me breathe. And he ordered chest x-rays and a CT scan… lung/heart related, not cold related.

I’ve gone for the tests and have an appointment scheduled with him this week to follow up. In the meantime, I had to call him on Friday to let him know that breathing was becoming impossible. He called in a prescription for antibiotics and I’m getting blood drawn before our appointment.

And as a side note, two days into the antibiotics and the runny nose is back with a vengeance, competing of course with the cough… and it’s the lungs that are losing!! And, good news or bad, the munchkin is still hanging out with me, because she’s still got a cough and fever too… guess who else is headed to the doctor!

And she’s now telling ME to get away from HER with MY germies!! Hey, turnaround’s fair play!

If this is my “winter” in Arizona, I can only imagine what others are dealing with this time of year. I grew up in Illinois and left to get away from this crap. Although I’ll certainly take feeling run-down and crappy in 70-80 degree weather over below zero temperatures any day!!

So tell me, how’s your year going so far? Are you staying healthy? When I took a look at some of the things I used to do for my health (until my fall last year), I realized I’d stopped doing some of them. No more!! I’m on the road to healthier again! Feel free to let me know in the comments the kinds of things you do for yourself or your family to stay healthy in spite of “germ season”.

Take care,
Debi aka @GenXBrat

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p.s.s. Here’s the information about the vaporizer I just bought.

It’s a Vick’s Nursery Vaporizer… it’s almost identical to the one I’d been using for as long as I can remember. And while I did see several reviews that said it was too noisy, I’m thinking these are folks with super hearing or who maybe need total silence to sleep… I’ve had to check it just to see if it’s actually putting out steam.

You can check out the reviews here and decide if it’ll do what you need it to. It’s a warm air vaporizer, and it’s been helping me and the munchkin at night, so I’d definitely recommend it if you don’t have one. It’s basic, 1-gallon, has an auto shutoff, and a cup for VapoRub liquid if you wanna add it. Hopefully, you’ll never need one!!

You can find it at Amazon… it’s $15 (plus shipping depending on whether you’re a Prime member or how much you order). It’s also available at Walmart (I checked because I wanted it NOW!). They offer free 2-day shipping now (I think it’s a lot like Amazon’s program, but you may wanna double-check their terms). Thankfully, I found it at my local store so I was up-and-running that night!