It is almost one o’clock and soon I must get ready for work. I have accomplished nothing today except for walking the dog. Four days ago, that was too much for me. After fighting the flu/cold / whatever bug for a month, and thinking I had won the battle, I was taken down Saturday by a new sinus infection.
Saturday night my daughter was at a party, and I texted to tell her she would have to walk the dog. Every time I tried to get up I was so cold, and my teeth chattered so hard, I was afraid they would break. Finally I managed to get into warmer clothes while under the covers, and then into my coat. Sunday I spent the entire day in bed.
Monday was better. Tuesday a little rough. Wednesday I went back to work and did better than expected. There was a moment in early afternoon when I thought “I just have to lay down”. I would have curled up on the rug behind the register, but I made it through. (On whatever day God created coffee – she/he saw that it was good)
Thank goodness for books on tape. When my sinuses flare I cannot read for long. I skim through my email, glance at FB, and then retreat to my warm nest and listen to Anna Fields read Louise Erdrich’s “The Painted Drum”. A book I heartily recommend and a pleasure to listen to Ms Fields read.
I wonder why dogs don’t seem to catch colds and flu. My dogs, mixed breed hound dogs, sometimes get sick to their stomachs. Usually some kind of carrion they have consumed does not set well and comes back up, or leaves to quickly through the usual route. I don’t think I have seen a dog with a cold. Maybe it is because they spend so much time sleeping, their body fights it off well. O maybe, because they are always snuffling their noses into every nook and cranny, they are well inoculated with a variety of bugs and germs and so develop natural immunity. Whatever it is, I am jealous.
I think your last comment may be the most revealing. While, yes, they get shots and stuff, generally they don’t obsess about keeping things sterile, perfectly clean. And there may be another reason: the main reason we live longer than they do is that our cells renew themselves. Generally their cell renew rate is a lot less or not at all. The “payback” maybe susceptibility. When our cells renewed they may be “new” in a way that allows slightly adapted viruses and germs to open the door a crack and slip in.
A guess.
Oh, and our guts are generally unhealthy. Antibiotics in food, and ones we take, kill off the healthy flora/bacteria as well as the bad. Millie and I were on nystatin for about 10 years, killing off candida albicans that exist throughout the body. We were more healthy than we had been for years, and far thinner. http://www.thecandidadiet.com/whatiscandida.htm
Last I knew it was considered quackery, but not at the time wew were on it. This was something a recognized, well respected, doctor recommended and saw us through. These days: not so sure. But when the medical community decided otherwise they pretty much ran him out of town.