Down for the count

It’s the beginning of the 2011 Sickoff at the Godwin-Walker household. Who will make it to the top of the snotty tissue podium? Who will be the also-ran left hugging the porcelain bowl?

I fired the opening salvo Saturday night with a 14-hour (!!!) comatose state, prefaced by an irritating cough, stobbed up nose and headache. And, of course, the requisite amount of whining.

Nick, seeing what I rip-roaring time I was having, decided to join my laid up party the next night with a hacking cough and the sniffles. And, of course, the requisite amount of whining.

Not to be outdone, I awoke at 3 a.m. with my arms covered in hives. And the cough was still there.

Then, this morning, he succeeded in having not one but TWO clogged nostrils. Add to that the injustice of a red and runny nose and he seems to have this competition of the crud in a lock.

But I wasn’t done. MS makes everything harder. Being sick is no exception. The exhaustion from the illness combined with the fatigue makes me about as useful as socks on a rooster. And that both of us are puny, well, it makes you wonder about that whole “in sickness and in health” thing. There was no fine print on what to do when both of us are under the weather. And neither of us do sick well.

Is this yet another sign of the impending apocalypse, along with blackbirds dying by the hundreds for no apparent reason just a few miles away from us? Or the fish dying by the thousands in the Arkansas River? Next you’ll tell me it’s raining frogs.

So far, I’ve taken liquid cold medicine tastes like a German mouthwash and transmission fluid cocktail. I finally gave in and took Benedryl. Bed, here I am. Let’s be best friends for a few more hours, ‘k? Oh, and I’m bringing a friend – Snuggie.

Nick is treating his with Sudafed and orange soda. His snot cultures I’m sure are yielding some sort of biohazard. I’m pretty confident my phlegm talked to me earlier.

Then came the sneeze that he said hurt all the way to his boy parts.

The only thing that could top that is if I cough up an organ. Which, at the rate I’m going…