The Cold

A couple of weeks ago I had a cold. It started out, as most colds seem to, with the mild impression that something was not right, and by the end of the first day had progressed to the point where I *knew* that something was not right and that it probably was responsible for the pounding headache and the increasingly sore throat. Unfortunately I spent the first evening out with a friend and didn’t get back to my place until late, at which point I felt like death. The next morning being my day off and also, coincidentally, the flea market at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto that I used to frequent on study abroad, I had made plans to meet my host mother and spend the afternoon with her. Instead of canceling and staying in bed I, of course, decided I felt markedly better and went out anyway. I still felt sick but I had a lovely day with my host mother and got home at a decent hour very much ready to sleep. The cold was, naturally, just getting warmed up.


There are few things more frustrating and lonely than being sick and alone in a foreign country. On the frustrating front there is attempting to find and purchase cold medicine, disinfectant wipes and throat lozenges when it takes a long time just to read the package and make sure that you’re not accidentally buying diet pills, candy and shoe polish. On the lonely front there is trying to cook and clean up after yourself when all you want to do is sleep, all with the burning suspicion that if you were to be suddenly bedridden it would take the school a little while to realize you were missing.

On the 5th day of my cold I started coughing even when not trying to go to sleep and was thus forced to adopt a measure seen on Japanese people of all ages during cold season: the mask. I have perhaps mentioned them here before, but face masks are worn by sick people in Japan to keep from spreading germs from coughing etc. They are not technically compulsory or anything, but social pressure is a law unto itself. Heeding advice from J I made sure to buy a men’s mask (apparently the women’s ones are very small) and wore it for a whole day at school. It was awful. I hadn’t been able to put my contacts in that morning and so every time I breathed into my mask it fogged up my glasses, and my nose was still running, making the inside of the damned thing feel like some sort of germ incubator. It was like wearing a steam room on my face. Every once in awhile I would have to pull down the mask, blow my nose, disinfect my hands and then replace the mask, which was of course damp inside and thus felt wet and cold by the time I got it back in place.

I downed grapefruit juice, went through all of my Theraflu, half a bottle of what turned out to be entirely ineffectual children’s cough syrup and used up more packets of tissues then I want to think about but in the end the only thing that worked was spending the entirety of Sunday in bed. Afterwards I was still a little sniffly and still coughed at night, but the worst was over.

Next time I’m just going to stay in.