I've been up with Anna for over an hour, waiting for cold medicine to take effect. The poor girl has had this dry, hacking cough for 2 days now, and it seems resistant to medicine. At the same time, it produces nothing. She was so tired initially that she managed to sleep about 6 hours without any medicine at all, but as soon as the sleep deficit was gone, the coughing set back in. She has no choice but to zonk out now, after my special desperation-induced cocktail of Triaminic Night-time Cold and Cough, Tylenol's Simply Stuffy (this is a great knock-out drug -- straight pseudoephedrine), and Delsym 12-hour cough suppressant. The Triaminic has different active ingredients than the other two, so don't you worry about me double-dosing her on anything.
Meanwhile, I can feel myself sliding further and deeper into the muck of my own cold. It was inevitable after Anna poked her slimy germ-riddled finger into my eyes and mouth two days ago.
Normally, I'm able to dodge 5 of 6 colds by taking plain ol' zinc vitamins (not Zycam -- just zinc from the supplement section of the store) as soon as a cold enters the house, or as soon as my throat starts to tickle. I take 1/2 to 1 tablet in the morning and 1/2 to 1 tablet in the evening, always with food (otherwise you feel queasy for awhile) until everyone has been well for a day or two. My colds usually stop at a mild day-long sore throat. It's fabulous. It seems to help Elli too -- I use a pill splitter and give her 1/4 tablet in the am and pm, crushed on her food. Haven't figured out a great way to give it to the other kids yet, and I'm not sure it would really benefit them in the long run -- they actually need to get sick some so their bodies develop immunities to these germs.
But every once in awhile I either forget to take the zinc regularly, or the cold germs are just too strong. This is one of those times. I'm still not nearly as sick as normal, but this one has progressed to real crud in the throat and congestion. Makes it tough to sleep, but I hesitate to take something hefty like Nyquil (love that stuff!) when the kids are sick too. I'm afraid it will knock me out so much I either won't hear them at all or will be too out of it to take care of them!
So here I sit, wondering if my sore throat will even let me sleep, and debating whether to just sleep on the couch, where I'm furthest from the sound of coughing emanating from the girls' room but will definitely wake up when Scott heads out early, or cozy back up in my own bed where I might get to sleep in a little since none of the kids is having the best night of sleep. I suppose if I wait too long, my body will make the decision for me!
