I don’t know if it has become a tradition of mine, but the fact is that I always catch a bad cold at the beginning of a winter. The one for this year, thank God, just came to an end not long ago. It just entered my life and overstayed my welcome. I simply lost count of days. It was truly a test of my strength, physically and mentally pushing my limits. 

Out of gratitude and excitement, I originally decided to write an article to specially commemorate this big event. Even the title was determined: In memory of the bad cold I caught at the end of 2011. However, I changed my mind in the end, for I suddenly came to the realization that it might come again. “Will I write a blog to welcome a bad cold next time?” It’s not proper and far too early to say goodbye to the cold, which left me only temporarily. You can never be sure when it will come again. It’s not like somebody who accidentally died, anyway.

Honestly, I’m not a guy who frequently gets a cold, just a couple of times a year at most. It seems, however, at the start of a winter, that I would inevitably catch a cold, and usually a bad one. Since you have to live with it, why not just accept it calmly? It’s just a cold, nothing more than that. When I looked back, I did find something that could be the source of my pride: My cold has its own characteristics! It’s kind of phenomenal.

When I said my cold has its own character, I mean it always goes through the same stages. At the very beginning, it will inform you by sending you a signal: There’s something unusual in your throat. You just feel a little uncomfortable speaking or swallowing food. Occasionally you sneeze all of sudden, which may make you embarrassed in the presence of other people.

If you don’t take it seriously, it will go further into the second stage, which is the most unbearable. You would feel like coughing, but extremely hard to make a real cough. Something in the throat will never be coughed off, it seems. The fiercest attacks usually occur in the night, when you have to cough and cough until your whole body vibrates with it. Sometimes you can even see blood in the phlegm. To make things worse, your nose is often stuffed–up at the same time. In some rare cases, you could lose your voice, which is a nightmare for a person who makes a living by using voice.

However, once you pass through this stage, things would get bearable. You may still cough, but you only need to cough two or three times, and you can get the mucus out of your mouth completely. Sometimes once would be enough to spit it out into a dustbin with a clear loud snap. You may still have a runny nose, but it is usually smooth for the yellowish matter to come out. Of course you have to blow your nose. The two tunnels are seldom obstructed in the third stage. The feel can be good when the stuff goes through the two pipes quickly.

If you are able to remain adamant and patient enough, you’ll eventually reach the fourth stage----- the final stage. Gradually the cold will begin to recede and all the symptoms will finally disappear. And you’ll be yourself again, as if having been liberated from some invisible evil spirits.

In the past, I usually went to the hospital in the hope of keeping the cold from getting severe. However, the end results never satisfied me. No matter what medicine you took or what kind of drip you are put on, ten days will be a minimum before a cold leaves you. The funny thing is that if you don’t bother to see a doctor, your cold will also go away after staying persistently with you for about the same length of time. Therefore, this time I was determined not to see a doctor and refused to take any medicine except some cough syrup. And it worked out well for me.

Perhaps I have to make things clearer. I don’t intend to advocate not seeing a doctor when you have a cold. In my case, I didn’t have a fever. That is, I just had a common cold, not a viral cold, which requires serious treatment. In my experience, it is vital to have enough rest and drink “hot” water as much as possible if you want to recover quickly.