Remember when a cold was just a cold?

You know, the sore throat, runny nose, the hacking cough, the slight fever kind of cold? That was before 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which sent everyone across the world into a tizzy. All of a sudden, a cold was not just a cold – it felt like a death sentence.

Laws were passed, and new rules were made. Our daily news broadcasts were filled with numbers that still stagger the mind. I remember visiting a friend trapped in a nursing home during the pandemic. I was dressed in what looked like a space suit, which was really hospital scrubs, complete with a paper mask and clear face shield. No wonder she stared at me in terror. The poor dear (with Alzheimer’s) had no idea who I was and what I was going to do to her! After that visit, I decided it would be kinder of me not to see her until restrictions subsided.

But another date sticks in my mind when a cold stopped being a cold. I was in the hospital with my bone marrow transplant when my nose started running, and a cough developed. The transplant had taken my white blood count, my infection fighters, down to almost zero. I had read the material enough to know that at this stage, you don’t die from the transplant but from pneumonia or kidney failure.

Obviously, doctors were very concerned, and I was gravely ill, but God brought me through it to where I am today. But as I continue with chronically low blood counts, my oncologist has encouraged me to go in sooner rather than later whenever I see symptoms developing. I usually wait a few days before I go to a local walk-in clinic as they want to see more urgent symptoms.

That was the case this last week. The change of weather and being with people during the holiday season was more than my little body could stave off. By New Year’s Eve, I was going under. Yesterday, I got some drugs. Today, for the first time in a week, I’m clear enough to put a few words together, yet hardly enough to make myself lunch.

I don’t know if your disease is like mine, making you vulnerable to the common cold, or if there are other limitations – things to watch out for that used to be “normal.” I saw a man walking down the sidewalk yesterday, inspecting every crack lest he trip. I know someone with a bone condition where just sneezing can break a rib.

Normal is no longer normal these days, even when it comes to having a cold.

Think about/Comment: How has your disease changed your “normal?” Tell me about it…