Kill or Cure

Loathed though I am to go on about my ailments, I thought this might amuse: As the week wore on the virus really took it out of me. As some of you will recall, it is now a medical fact that I get colds and the like worse than Mr. Average due to an overactive immune system and going to an allergist who put it on record. Facing that fact has allowed me to indulge in all manner of medications prescribed by the allergist to reduce the results of my aggressive immune system.

So, on Tues as my cough began to keep me awake big time, I opened one eye (the other being gummed shut by conjunctivitis/“Pink Eye”), reached for the high-tech cough syrup and poured myself the prescribed 2 teaspoonfuls from the nice little dosing cup they give away free with every bottle of medicine these days. The result was amazing: within 10 minutes my nose was clear and I ceased coughing. But there was more to come: 15 more minutes passed and I noticed that I could feel the cough syrup making its way though my digestive system with progressively more discomfort. I lay in bed fevered with “a Dicky Gut”, but not coughing at all, for a couple of hours as it passed through.

The next night around 12:00pm I was again faced with the decision of: cough all night or go for the cure. “Probably a fluke due to jetlag” I thought as I refilled the dosing cup and swallowed hard. It wasn’t! The same discomfort occurred with clockwork precision.

By Thurs evening, feeling not a whole lot better post cold-wise, I was tempted by “the cure” again. This time I figured if I took “the cure” early, around 8:00pm. I could go through the discomfort awake and actually sleep the rest of the night. At this point Dena, who while not directly experiencing the discomfort, had certainly experienced it secondhand, intervened and suggested I call her brother. I gave Gray the list of active ingredients and he quickly told me which one could be causing the problem. He suggested I find a cough mixture without said ingredient and all could be well. Dena went straight off the pharmacist and got me a new bottle of “the cure” sans said ingredient.

As I poured out 2 teaspoonfuls in the nice little dosing cup that the new “cure” came with, I was quite surprised at how small 2 teaspoonfuls looked in that new cup compared to the previous one. An optical illusion perhaps? Further investigation showed the previous dosing cup measured up to 2 Tablespoonfuls! Oops!