At this point last year, I was participating in a broadcast alongside three vocalists. Present were a Ghanaian-origin rapper, a major pop celebrity, and an acclaimed classical singer. The coldest season was upon us. Just the night prior, I’d been at an old friend’s 60th birthday, packed into a local bar's party area in a Surrey location. The festivities were fun, however at that moment, to break the silence, I questioned ways to dodge the common cold when half the people at the party were part of an orchestra of winter ailments. Incidentally, why do certain individuals blow their noses so loudly, and some do not? Something to explore later.
The Response of the Three Performers
Upon referencing the party, this trio of troubadours in the waiting area responded in two ways. First, they shrunk away from me slightly. Secondly, they started a passionate debate on how to avoid catching colds that expected because of their careers was almost an obsession. That makes sense, but I have skin in this game too – preventing colds is crucial for me since my colds are more severe than others'. There's no doctor's note to prove it, yet I'm certain it's factual. My colds last longer. My nose is more blocked, I have a more irritated throat, I suffer from louder, more relentless coughing spells. My relatives, familiar with the early throat signs that signal an oncoming cold, either kick me out of the room or leave themselves. When I worked as a sports broadcaster, my teammates behind the scenes learned to recognize the signals. “Headphones off!” the director would shout to his team before I deafened them all, damaging their headset equipment.
Managing Blocked Noses
As for my blocked noses, don’t start me. Aerosols, liquids, even the sharp aroma of warm spirits my mum prescribes … they help briefly until they fail. It's hard to find something more pathetic than a Brummie tone spoken without the benefit of air passing through the nostrils. That is, it sounds a bit nasally restricted at the best of times. On the plus side, it draws pity, which isn’t always a good thing. In my first year away at university, away from my mum and her medicinal brandy, the cleaning staff at our accommodation felt sorry for me. “I have the perfect solution, you poor thing. Be right back.” She was wonderfully sweet, very Irish, and adamant that I consume the uncooked, peeled onion she offered me in bed. She monitored my consumption. Kind soul. Didn’t achieve anything, sadly, apart from sending my guts into raptures and creating bad breath.
The Singer’s Health Routine
Thus, I hate colds and firmly believe avoiding is superior to treating which onion-based or otherwise, fail to help. I paid close attention then along with the rapper and the pop star when the mezzo-soprano walked us through her cold avoidance regime. Due to upcoming holiday performances, she approached it with great diligence. She instructed us to apply hand sanitiser on the hour, every hour during the cold months from what I gathered in addition, specific measures were necessary during festivities. Before any event, she recommended a couple of blasts of a preventive product up each nostril – whether you felt a cold coming or not. Extreme. It appealed to me. And, get this, she insisted on following it up post-event with more spray of the product.
The Results
I followed suit. And I can report I snuffled not once all last winter. There were downsides: the many containers I acquired, lost, repurchased, rediscovered, and more. And that dispiriting moment when you discover you've crushed the hand sanitizer stored in your pocket and it's leaking all over. However, an acceptable trade-off. With winter returning, I'm fully prepared with her prevention arsenal. I'm prepared to combat.
