It’s a Head Cold, for Goodness Sake!

On Sunday, we visited a branch of our extended family tree. The youngest member is only 19 months old. He had a streaming cold. We probably shouldn’t have gone, but our having two doses of the Pfizer vaccine tends to give us ‘Dutch courage’. We didn’t mask up.

Now, just so that we’re all on the same page, this child has had two COVID-19 tests, just in case. The tests came back ‘negative’, so that’s a relief. But, to demonstrate how paranoid the world has become, most other family members advised that I should consult a doctor: for a cold?!

The last time I had a cold was shortly after my daughter, Rosanna, returned to the UK after a visit, to celebrate my 70th birthday (February 2020). With social distancing and mask mandates, no one has been spreading germs of any sort for 20 months. Seemingly, that’s about to change as society begins to open up again. Immuno-compromised people, such as myself (I’m a Type 2 diabetic), need to have a high-dose ‘flu’ shot, as well as a third ‘booster’ shot of the Pfizer vaccine. I had my ‘flu’ shot yesterday (hence the cold symptoms becoming evident last night) and we’re scheduled to get the ‘booster’ on the 22nd of November. This is for “protection” and peace of mind.

But, in the back of my mind, I have Quimby reminding me that ‘disease’ is a belief system, based on the medical opinions of doctors, nurses and other health care workers. So, perhaps, I need to just repeat Émile Coué‘s oft-quoted autosuggestion:

See you on the flip-side…