The Cherry Cough Drop Story

March 19, 2015
Day 324
-8.6, 110,019 (+9,802)

This short story is far from the most exciting tale I've ever told, but I think it truly encapsulates the kind of year I've had so far.  Sometimes a single moment in time can capture everything you've been going through.

It was mid-January, and pothole season had already started rubbing its sick hands with excitement.  On January 20th, I was driving home from the gym, and hit the mother of all potholes--a crater really, the type of hole I'm certain a meteor must have made--sending my car into rehab, where it laid in my driveway for the past two months.  (As if on cue, once the two months were up and the doctors were satisfied my car could be trusted out in the world again, I had it repaired finally last night, and I'm driving it again today.) 

In the middle of this all, on February 24th, I went to a doctor who treats human beings, not cars, and told him I'd been having on-and-off heartburn along with what felt like some kind of inflammation in my chest.  A truly magical moment later, he told me to take Aleve and Prilosec for two weeks, and the inflammation and chronic heartburn would go away.  I wanted to hug the man.  I wanted to jump in his arms and thank him for saving me. 

As it turns out (at least so far), I only needed three full days of that treatment, because by February 26th, I started coming down with some kind of demonic head cold from hell.  At first I was afraid (not petrified) the Aleve had triggered it, noting difficulty swallowing on the list of side effects, but once I stopped the Aleve and Prilosec pills, and went on regular cold and flu medicine, I realized I was simply suffering from a very bad case of winter.  And it lingered.  And lingered.

This past Tuesday, March 17th, I went back to the doctor for humans, told him my heartburn issue had disappeared completely, but now an annoying head cold and probable ear infection was tormenting me, and just wouldn't go away.  This time, he gave me prescriptions for much stronger medicines which have already made a tremendous difference, thank God...and thank Doctor.

On Wednesday morning of this week, I awoke feeling much better, and went to the bathroom for a quick pee and then my morning shave.  Halfway through shaving though, I was stopped in my tracks by something that definitely should not have been where it was.  There on the right sleeve of the short-sleeve shirt I'd been wearing to bed the past few nights was a cherry cough drop.  It was half sucked, and looked quite pathetic, something that clearly slipped out of my mouth in a recent medicinal haze before bed, and it just sat there pasted on my sleeve like some kind of mutant red rodent trying to eat its way through.

This single moment just completely encapsulated everything the past two months have been like for me, and that, my friends, is my cherry cough drop story.