'Tis the season

My family-in-law has a new holiday tradition. Every holiday when we visit, my mother-in-law hugs me and tells me I'm her favourite daughter-in-law, and in return I catch her cold. This has been an ongoing tradition for the past five years. I'm beginning to wish I wasn't her favourite daughter-in-law. There's just too much responsibility involved.

I cannot stand catching a cold. It'd be fine if it was short-lived like most people, but living with an auto-immune disease means that every cold takes me three to four weeks recovery. I cannot recall ever making someone else sick, seems that I'm always the last on the totem-pole to catch it from others. So maybe by the time the virus strain gets to me it figures how to remain active for a longer period. The other option is that my body is so friendly to viruses that it builds a settlement and feels at home and only a full scale military invasion could get rid of it.

So I engaged in an all-out war on it yesterday and did the unthinkable - I mixed medications. Started out with one brand in the morning and proceeded with another. I can excuse this lapse of judgement by saying I was drugged. Well apparently, mixing medications plus a measure of added stress caused me an internal bleeding. I'm fine now, just a little shocked at how fast my immune system gets out of whack. As much as I "love" that spacy feeling after taking medication (I suppose that's what alcohol does to a person), and as much as I hate coughing, I think I'll have to stop my all-out war and engage in mini-battles instead.

The good news - I'm past my first week with this cold (two more to go!) and today is Friday!

Toda la'el hayom yom shishi.