Pray and Spray

I have the honor and privilege to hang out with my two grandchildren, ages three and four, at least two days a week. I pick them up from pre-school on Wednesdays and get to witness first-hand the petri dish they dwell in while there. Not one child there is without a snotty nose and exercises their right to wipe it…well, wherever they feel like it. The teachers do their best at making them wash their hands and continually sanitize surfaces, but there is only so much they can do. This is, after all, cold and flu season!

So, when the kids get a cold it gets passed around from one another to my husband, myself, my daughter (their mother) and their father and usually back around again before it’s over with. The day after Christmas, we all got the flu and it took about twelve days to get to a place where we felt anywhere near normal.

By day seven, I still didn’t feel very well but was terribly annoyed and bored with the whole thing. I kept praying that we all would start feeling better sooner than later. It was my daughter’s Christmas break and my husband always has the time between Christmas and New Year’s off so we could take a mini vacation, but that did not work out this year.

Once I started to feel a little better, I tried to get back into my devotions but got online looking at websites with home remedies from around the world. I saw anything from live leaches to rotten cabbage as sure fire ways to get over colds and rebuild your immune system. I went to Walgreen’s and bought Lysol wipes, Lysol spray, anti-bacterial hand sanitizer in the giant economy size and 6 boxes of Vick’s scented Puffs. I got a funny look from the lady behind the counter and explained I was waging war against germs. She wished me luck.

Every time my poor husband coughed or sneezed, I sprayed Lysol. I wiped down all door handles, light switches and anything we both might touch. I started to feel better before he did so as not to relay those germs again, I had him set up with Vitamin C lozenges, chicken broth, Echinacea nose spray and anti-bacterial wipes for his hands. Between me and his cold, my husband was starting to lose his sense of humor.

When we lived in Texas, we had a family doctor that would tell us, when we had colds, that she could give us an antibiotic and it we would get well in about 7 days, or we could eat chicken broth and get well in about a week. I think next cold and flu season, I will stick with pray and spray!

By Pat Schwieder