Vitamins

The sinus infection war rages on. The antibiotics and I are losing.

At the recommendation of one of my friends, I got some Zicam. I got the menthol nasal spray (which is very pleasant and soothing) and the oral mist in Arctic Mint flavor. They try to claim, "Great taste!"

Lies. Cruel lies. Zinc does not taste good. Never has. Probably never will. A more honest statement advertisement would be, "It's still kinda gross, but hopefully we've disguised it enough that you won't gag."

I remember my first traumatizing experience with zinc. It all started with me hating to take vitamins.

My parents had decided that I should graduate from Flintstones chewables to "grown up" pills. To say I rebelled is an understatement. I would do anything to avoid taking vitamins. I thought I was pretty good at pretending to swallow them, but my parents quickly caught on.

They started checking my pockets after dinner. Soon, even my socks weren't a safe hiding place. Of course, I came up with a few ways to get around that. When I was in college, we found a collection of vitamins in the pockets of an Advent calendar, placed there years before by yours truly.

Finally, my dad got sick of it. He sat me down one night after dinner with a multivitamin and a glass of water. He said, "Lauren, you are not leaving this table without taking this vitamin. You have two choices. You can swallow the pill. Or, you can dissolve it in the glass of water and drink it.

"Haha!" I thought. "Dissolving it won't be so bad. Dad thinks I can't get through life not learning to swallow pills. I'll show him!"

"I'll drink it," I said.

"Okaaay," he drawled, "It's not going to taste very good."

"That's what I want to do." It couldn't be that bad....

WRONG. It. Was. Totally. Disgusting. I took me several minutes to force down 2 gulps. And I couldn't manage any more. My dad had other things to do, so he let me go for the night.

But the next evening, I was faced with the same choice.

I learned how to swallow pills.


My next task is learning to tolerate sinus irrigation. I freaking hate it. It makes me gag. But the same friend who recommended the Zicam assured me that he can now use a neti pot without any ill effects. And it only took a year to get used to it....

That's some serious dedication. But after more that three months of this crap, I'm ready to not be sick anymore.