Sickness and Mr. Yuk

Date published: February 18, 2006

Since Tuesday night, I've had a horrible cough, congestion, headaches that come and go, and more phlegm than I have see in years. Today, I finally started getting my appetite back and feeling well enough to walk further than the living room. I'm hoping that this marks the end of what has been a bad 4 weeks.

See, a month ago, I went to my doctor because I had this weird chest pain. Though it was there just about all the time, at certain times it would get quite sharp, especially when I took a deep breath. The sharp pain didn't happen all the time though, which of course makes something like that sort of hard to diagnose. Anyway, my doctor said that it wasn't bronchitis or anything and that it was probably due to a slight cough that I'd been having. Like all colds, I was to just get plenty of fluids and rest, and it would pass soon enough. I might also mention that he gave me a prescription for Tylenol #3 (the one with Codine)... in fact I did just mention it.

As he said, over time it started to go away. It's one of those things where one day you just say "Hey, I haven't noticed that annoyance in a while." One of those things that's so annoying and you tell yourself that you've go to try to ignore it. Then one day you realize that you haven't been ignoring it anymore because it's gone. Well right when that happened, I got an email saying work was giving out free flu shots (even though the flu season is almost over). I'd never got a flu vaccine before, so I thought "What the hell, time to try something new!" What an experience it was.

Over a week of gastralintestinal problems. Let's just leave it at that.

I start getting over THAT and I start getting a cold (again). So this brings us back to Tuesday night. The coughing, congestion, headaches, and phlegm. Over the last couple days, besides the Tylenol #3 prescribe to me a month ago, I've tried out a couple different over-the-counter products. The Sudafed Multisymptom Cold & Cough seemed to work well. It's got a pain reliever, decongestant, expectorant, and cough suppressant. Perfect. I'd also been sucking on some Halls Defense Fruit Breezers. The orange and cream flavor. When I ran out of those, I was looking for some more. The Fruit Breezers really don't help with anything other than giving me a boost of Vitamin C and keeping my throat a bit lubricated. Maybe I should try a different type of throat drop? What the hell, time to try something new!

Enter Cold-Eeze lozenges. "Oh look, they've got an orange and cream flavor too!" It even says they're clinically proven to reduce the duration of the common cold. (That's because they contain zinc gluconate, just like those Zicam products). Ok, enough of the general overview. These things are the most putrid lozenge that I've ever had. They might even be the first lozenge that I just can't stand. I tried them twice, both times I had to spit it out for fear that I was going to throat up, choke, and die due to my congestion. To be fair though, my roommate tried them and he just said "They're not great, but... Meh." So apparently he wasn't as repulsed.

So, like I've said, I'm finally getting better... and now on to the educational part of this post.

Some of you might recognize the face in the banner image of this post. It's Mr. Yuk. He was created by the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh as a warning label to put on poisonous items in the household. Their bit slogan was "Mr. Yuk means NO!" Growing up back in the late 70s/early 80s, I remember seeing Mr. Yuk on products throughout the house. So yeah, even though he means poisonous, I couldn't think of anything more iconic to describe my current state. Absolute yuck.

While looking online for an image of Mr. Yuk, I happened to ask a friend if she knew of him. She didn't. Finding that surprising I asked another friend. His reply? "Mr. Yuk means NO!" Apparently their marketing campaign worked on him! He even knew the correct spelling (something I didn't, which made my search more difficult). Both friends were the same age as me, one was from the east coast, the other from the west coast. Being that Mr. Yuk originated in Pittsburgh, I'm wondering if that's why myself and my friend, both northeasterners, know of him better. Granted, after showing my west coast friend the image of Mr. Yuk, she immediately remembered him. She just didn't know he had a name.

I'm not too sure how much Mr. Yuk is used anymore. I know I haven't seen him in over 15 years. I'm thinking that this might be due to two medical studies published in 82 and 84 that Mr. Yuk stickers does not effectively keep children away from potential poisons and may even attract children. I asked my friend Paul if he ever used Mr. Yuk in his home (he's got a pre-teen son), he never used Mr. Yuk.

Thus ends our educational installment. To read more, check out Mr. Yuk's Wikipedia entry. Hope everyone is feeling better than I have been lately.