Jeff got sick last weekend and continued being mildly sick through most of the week. I had a bit of a sore throat last Sunday but was fine for most of the week, until I started getting sick on Thursday and felt rather ill on Friday. I went to work anyway (and was mildly ineffective), since I was only on the borderline of staying home and didn't want to go into the red with sick time for the third month in a row. Besides, I've got a three-day weekend to be sick in.
So I've been moping around with a persistent mild sore throat, a bit of a cough, and a left nostril that plugs itself up periodically. This is the first time in a long while that I've had a cough, and it reminds me of when I was sick in France, in the fall of 1996.
It must have been early October or possibly late September, though that seems a little soon. I would have said it was even later, except this happened with my first host family, and I had to leave them during the first week of November. Whenever it was exactly, I fell ill. I didn't think it was anything serious, but my host mother hauled me off to the doctor, who pronounced that I had something called rhinopharyngitis
and prescribed me one or two medications, including some cough syrup, which was to be administered if she coughs.
I hated cough syrup with a passion and did not want to take any; therefore I did not cough. I would sometimes clear my throat delicately, when I could not resist, but I would not cough. Such was my hatred of cough syrup.
In due course I recovered, but in mid-winter the germ came back. My second host mother, Martine, hauled me off to another doctor, who prescribed three different medications, once again including cough syrup. This time I was not given the option of not coughing, and this time the rhinopharyngitis did not return.
Sometimes stubbornness is not to my advantage.
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