I have a cold. Just a cold. Not the plague. I am not Typhoid Mary. I am not spreading death and destruction with each cough. I do not have H1N1!!!
And yet, with each bark I feel eyes upon me, measuring me. Recoiling in horror.
I drove to Prince George last week. 800 km each way. By myself, feeling like a dog’s breakfast. I could have flown, but I didn’t. One reason was so I could take some things up and bring some things back that wouldn’t have been possible on a plane. 9 hours of driving while sick may not make a lot of sense when the flight takes a little over an hour. But when everyone is so terrified of the H1N1 virus it makes a little more sense. I know I don’t have it, but other people don’t.
I have a cold. A barking, snuffly, voice stealing cold. I am used to this. I get something similar on an almost annual basis. I know the signs, I know the progress. I just can’t take anything because I have a weird sensitivity to dextromethorphan (the DM in every cough suppressant on the market). I’d rather cough than hallucinate. Although that can be fun too.
But for the first time ever, when I go out and cough, I look to anyone nearby and immediately say “It’s just a cold”. I am justifying my presence and my health. Is this how women felt before being ID’d as a witch and burned at the stake?
It used to be that when you got sick, people felt sorry for you, now I am justifying my presence outside my home with each snuffle. I feel like a pariah.
I heard a funny statistic the other day. You have a 1 in 2000 chance of dying from falling out of bed. You have a 1 in 8000 chance of dying from H1N1. But people are so conscious of this bug. Thanks to the public media I am afraid to cough for fear of getting kicked out of a store.
I just have a cold…OK?