Around this period a year ago, I ended up participating in a broadcast with three singers. Included were a rapper of Ghanaian heritage, a well-known pop singer, and an acclaimed classical singer. It was deep midwinter. Just the night prior, I celebrated a close friend's milestone birthday, squeezed into a pub's event space in a Surrey location. It had been a good night, yet now, to break the silence, I pondered how one could prevent getting a cold when half the people at the party were players in a symphony of coughs, sneezes, snuffles and nose-blows. Incidentally, why do certain individuals blow their noses so loudly, and others don’t? A topic for future discussion.
The Response by the Three Performers
When I brought up my evening, these three musicians backstage at the TV studio took two actions. First, they shrunk away from me slightly. Second, they started a passionate debate regarding ways to stay cold-free and this understandable due to their profession was almost an obsession. I get that, but I have skin in this game too – I need to dodge colds no matter what because the colds I get are worse than anyone else’s. I lack official documentation, but I know it to be true. My illnesses drag on. I experience worse nasal blockage, I have a more irritated throat, my coughs are harsher, more persistent and seem infinite. My relatives, familiar with the early throat signs that signal an oncoming cold, either kick me out of the room or evacuate the area. When I worked as a sports broadcaster, my poor colleagues in the studio gallery became familiar with the indicators. “Earpieces out!” the director would shout to his team before I deafened them all, overloading their audio gear.
Dealing With Nasal Congestion
Regarding my nasal issues, don’t start me. Nasal sprays, decongestants, including the intense vapor from heated brandy my mom advocates … they provide temporary relief until they fail. Nothing is quite as sad as the sound of a Birmingham accent spoken without the benefit of air passing through the nostrils. That is, it can sound nasal even normally. Fortunately, this often brings compassion, which isn’t always a good thing. During my initial university year, without my mother's home remedies, the cleaner in our halls of residence took pity on me. “I’ve got just the thing for that, you dear. I’ll be back in a minute.” She was extremely kind, very Irish, and very insistent that I ate the fresh, skinless onion she presented to me. She monitored my consumption. Bless her. Didn’t achieve anything, unfortunately, except for upsetting my stomach and creating bad breath.
The Singer’s Prevention Strategy
Thus, I despise catching colds and am convinced prevention beats cure which onion-based or otherwise, don’t work. I focused carefully alongside my colleagues while she explained her health practices. With seasonal gigs on the schedule, she was highly committed. She instructed us to use hand gel hourly all winter long based on her explanation and, there were special precautions required for social events and gatherings. Before any event, she recommended a couple of blasts of a preventive product up each nostril – regardless of symptoms. Intense. It appealed to me. Moreover, she mandated a second dose post-event with more spray of the same stuff.
What Happened Next
I followed suit. And I have to say I didn't sniffle all winter. There were downsides: the many containers I acquired, misplaced, bought again, located, and so on. And that dispiriting moment when you discover you've crushed the hand sanitizer kept in your jeans and it's leaking all over. Nevertheless, an acceptable trade-off. As the cold season approaches once more, I'm stocked up with the singer's suggested supplies. I'm set for the fight.
