Don't Drink Bees

Being sick feels lousy, but it's supposed to be good for us, right? Strengthens the old immune system. Our body "learns" from the illness. The white blood cell generals will know how to fight this particular virus next time - and maybe they'll even be able to adapt their knowledge and crush a similar but different sneaky germ attack before the rest of the body is even aware of the invasion.

Our brain benefits too. It "learns" strategies for such things as breathing when the nose is completely blocked, soothing a sore and scratchy throat, bringing down a fever, preventing the coughing up of a lung, and accurate vomiting into the toilet bowl.

We are definitely not born knowing these things, as evidenced by the sleepless nights parents spend with their ill children who have not perfected the art of nose blowing nor of accurate vomiting. Both of which lead to the chugging of the washing machine late into the night.

I learned those lessons along with others from my earlier bouts with illness. (I'm a whiz with a Kleenex, and I haven't missed a toilet bowl in years.) These are a few of the lessons that continue to stand out in my adult mind.

When I was in elementary school, a cold would keep me out of school a good two weeks. The first week was for resting and recovering from the runny nose, fever, tearing eyes, etc. The second week was for coughing - and removing the bright red thumb print from the right side of my nose.

It never occurred to me that this might not be a common phenomenon. I assumed that everyone had a bright red thumb mark on their face produced from excessive nose blowing. My mother didn't seem surprised by it at all. In fact, she calmly showed me how to apply Vaseline to heal it.

You might think that is the lesson I hold onto today: Vaseline heals nose blowing traumas. But it's not. Years later, when I began purchasing my own tissues, I realized I'd been suffering unnecessarily. I discovered the existence of soft tissues, gentle tissues, tissues with aloe! (I also found that the ones with aloe are great for noses, but not so great for cleaning eyeglasses unless you like smeary panes.)

I don't think the only facial tissues available in my youth were composed of sandpaper, but that was what we had in our house then, so that was what we used. Well, actually my brother was a bit quicker than I was and used his pillowcase as a huge handkerchief and avoided the no-name-brand, bargain basement, fine-grain sandpaper sheets. I wish I'd caught on a bit sooner; maybe then I wouldn't have missed as much school. (Showing up with a big red thumb print on your face is a good invitation to mockery and pummeling - unless the bullies heard it rumored that you had an exotic illness that might maim them or something worse.)

Yes, the trauma of "the mark" remains with me to this day. I always check my nose after a hearty day of blowing to make sure it isn't time to break out the Vaseline again.

Lesson 1: Spare no expense when it comes to paper products to be used on a tender nose. (And if you ignore lesson one, Vaseline helps heal abrasions caused unnecessarily by cheap facial tissues.)

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