Man, cold

"It's not COVID!" He yelled from under a pile of blankets on the couch.

For two days, going on three, my husband had been making camp in the living room, asking me to fetch him a beverage or stoke the wood stove while he cycled through a plethora of television options ... and coughed uncomfortably.

He is not a good patient.

And for three days going on four, I'd been annoyed, wrinkling my nose as he punctuated the end of his sentences with an obligatory expectorate hoping the neck of the t-shirt he'd stretched over his face would be adequately protective. 

I have run out of patience.

I didn't want to be the nag, asking him when he tested last, but I was also tired of feeling the burden of worry … especially as I tried to avoid the crumpled remnants of the last toilet tissue roll he'd taken from the bathroom for use as receptacles for his specimens, which turned up like puffed tumbleweeds everywhere.

“Need anything at the store? I see we're out of T.P.”

“Ooh … I'd love some kombucha,” he replied. “The good kind.”

“Ok, sure. And while I'm gone, you might want to take this here cotton swab and swirl it around in your nose awhile. I'll help you read the results when I return.”

“Alright … but you'll owe me. Like I want the kind of septic-clogging toilet tissue that will feel soothing on my sensitive schnoz.”

Of course, as fate would have it, upon my return the man was waving the test cassette around as if it were a disposable lighter at a concert when the band began playing his song.

"N-e-g-a-t-I-v-e ... like I told ya."

I wasn't surprised. But I was happy he'd tested his assumption.

Maybe it was just a “man cold,” or the same viral bug that had attached itself to our son's upper respiratory system and caused him to spend the better part of the previous week with a cough that rivaled a smoker. All his home tests were negative, too.

We had even made a trip to the pediatrician to rule out RSV or a secondary infection - like pneumonia - that might require antibiotics.

Which the doctor prescribed considering the worsening cough had been (by my recollection) hanging out, low key, for weeks. 

Of course, once my husband felt the tickle in his throat and started to cough, he assumed he would be next in line at the pharmacy. Like father, like slow-draining sinus-anatomy son.

In his estimation whatever was causing the thickening mucus to mosh around in his headspace if it was reason enough to self-isolate, it was reason enough to over-medicate.

And so in three days' time, he wound up at his doctor, too. 

A doctor who, to my husband's chagrin, refused to prescribe the five-day anti-microbial “cure” that he sought. And who, instead, insisted on testing for other possible infections, and sent him home with instructions for a weekend of rest, hydration, and movie marathons as he awaited the results.

Which eventually presented him with another “I-told-ya-so” moment.

“They called. I tested positive for RSV. I told you it wasn't a Man Cold.”