I was so proud. I had made it through an entire winter season without getting sick. At most, I sneezed a few more times than usual one day. It was wonderful. It was glorious.

Then it all changed. Sore throat after sore throat turned into coughing and sneezing and all sickly symptoms of a cold.

I was sick. It was the end of the cold and flu and winter season, and I was finally sick. My ways of not washing my hands every five minutes and touching the door handles of public entrances had finally caught up with me.

I was down for several days. I couldn’t eat room temperature food because it hurt my throat to swallow. I couldn’t eat hard carbs for that same reason. I died a little on the inside, because I love carbs. My chronic intake of coffee for the sake of helping my throat made it impossible to sleep at night. My lungs felt like fire. The scarves that I wore always got sneezed on, and therefore were not wearable.

The worst thing to come of this sickness, however, is what my mother did to try and make me stop coughing. Recently she has gotten into Pintrest and Stumble Upon. Some of the posts give her awful, awful remedies to try on me, but this one had to be the worst.

She read that a lady, to stop her children from coughing, put Vicks vapor rub on their feet. My mother sat in front of me and took my socks off, put latex gloves on and then proceeded to put Vicks on my unwilling feet. Afterwards, I could feel it between my toes and I quickly washed it off. I couldn’t stand it any longer. It didn’t help my cough in the slightest way. It just made me really uncomfortable and it made me wish that I had washed my hands every five minutes and that I had never touched the door handles of public places. I wished I had never came into contact with any germs at all.

Don’t touch door handles of public places, wash your hands every five minutes, don’t get a cold and avoid getting Vicks vapor rub on your unwilling feet.