Virus

Today I rose gratefully without fever.  I breathed the faint scent of mentholated ointment and pattered past a pile of wadded tissues on the floor.  Puffy-eyed and mouth breathing I sit pondering my recent surrender in a battle against an opponent both formidable and minuscule, a virus. 

Virus is defined at dictionary.com as follows.
1.  an ultramicroscopic (20 to 300nm in diameter), metabolically inert, infectious agent that replicates only within the cells of living hosts, mainly bacteria, plants and animals:  composed of an RNA or DNA core, a protein coat, and, in more complex types, a surrounding envelope.
2.  (informal) a viral disease.
3.  a corrupting influence on morals or the intellect; poison.
4.  a segment of self-replicating code planted illegally in a computer program, often to damage or shut down a system or network.

I am getting my butt kicked by what I suspect is the foe known in Latin as rhinitis acuta catarrhalis.  In contemporary American English my present enemy is called the common cold – a virus caused disease of the upper respiratory system.  According to perusal of Wikipedia, the common cold is the most frequent infectious disease in humans with the average adult contracting two to four colds a year and the average child between six and twelve.  Zoiks!  And I read there are over 200 serologically different virus types that cause colds!  What?  And, because of the many different types of viruses and their tendency for continuous mutation, it is impossible to gain complete immunity to the common cold.  Nasopharyngitis is raging!

How are we to defend ourselves from an ultramicroscopic infectious agent that sneaks its way through the air into the gelatinous haven of our nasal passages, the wide open watery entryway of our eyes, or the perpetually public port of our mouths?  Especially when low humidity, crowds and less than seven hours of sleep nightly are factors increasing chances of contracting the virus.  December is all about dry heat, throngs and late nights!

Thanks to Jennifer Ackerman who wrote in October 2010 “Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold” I learned people with stronger immune systems are more likely to develop symptomatic colds  because symptoms of a cold are directly due to the strong immune response to the virus.   Seriously?  My need to stay in bed for an entire day clinging dearly to tissues and religiously slurping Alka Seltzer Cold fizzy drinks may be my own body’s fault?  J.M. Gwaltney and F.G. Hayden offer hope in a 2006 article “Understanding Colds” stating that the common cold is self-limiting, and the host's immune system effectively deals with the infection.  In healthy, immunocompetent individuals, the common cold resolves in seven days on average. 

So, I have maybe three more days to go.  And I know I am not alone.  I see you out there sniffling along with me offering yourselves unwittingly as the living host to a metabolically inert infectious agent that cannot replicate without you.