Battling winter sniffles

I had gone years without suffering the indignities of the common cold, attributing it to superior genetics and clean living. Turns out I was just lucky.

Last week it caught up to me. After sniffling around with a runny nose and cough for five days. I finally decided to go to the doctor Friday morning when my throat got sorer. I didn’t want to suffer strep throat during the Super Bowl game. A swab of my throat proved it wasn’t strep, but it was a nice shade of red.

I wasn’t alone. Dr. Huisenga said they’d seen a lot of patients with flu. Some ended up in the hospital Schools are full of it. Some of our office staff were sick. Although I felt well enough to work, I stayed home for a few days so my germs wouldn’t spread to others and make things worse.

There’s not much you can do for a cold. As my learned father-in-law used to say, “You can take medicine for a cold and it will be cured in seven days, or you can do nothing and it will be gone in a week.”

I’d like to think my regimen of vitamins C and D help ward off the nasty bugs. Dr. Daniels put me on vitamin D a few years back when a blood test showed I was deficient. That’s not unusual in the northern hemisphere, where the sun shines so little in the winter. Sun is the main stimulus for producing vitamin D, which is essential for enhancing bone growth and immune systems. Vitamin C is supposed to be good for building immunity too. At least, that’s what the vitamin people say.

So I was well enough to watch the Super Bowl, but the outcome made me kind of sick. I’m a Kansas City Chiefs fan and they didn’t look so good. Fortunately, a kid from our backyard, Cooper DeJean of Odebolt, was one of the stars of the game, even though he played for the other team. The Philadelphia Eagles rookie, who played in college for the Iowa Hawkeyes, intercepted a Patrick Mahomes pass and returned it for a touchdown. DeJean will never have to pay for a drink in his hometown.

With football over, I’ll be looking for ways to make the winter weekends pass. We like to watch college basketball — both women and men — on TV, especially the Iowa Hawkeyes, Iowa State Cyclones and Notre Dame Fighting Irish (and our own Buena Vista Beavers, of course). We’d watch the 22-2 Drake Bulldogs too, coached by Storm Laker Ben McCollum, if we could find them on TV. Drake is the best-kept secret in college basketball.

In the meantime, we’ll wait for the blizzard that arrives each year with the girls state basketball tournament.