Cold hard truths: Snuffling and honking, whinging and crying, leaving a trail of tissues in your wake. Read Jonny's column - A Different Light as published in the Northern Advocate 48 hours, 6th August 2016

I’ve had a head cold for a hundred years.  Okay, I exaggerate. 

People around me would say anything I say about my cold is an exaggeration.  It goes hand in hand with that mum & dad joke about the ‘man flu’.  But honestly, I’ve had this cold or colds for more than a month.  It’s like a revolving door of snorts, groans, hacking, swearing, dripping and sneezing. 

I’m sure I’ve got the NBC virus – ‘No Bastard Cares’. 

I started this journey of courting vast amounts of mucus in my head on my journey abroad.  The illness on the journey didn’t seem that bad. This wasn’t however because I was on holiday; it was because you could buy Sudafed that actually worked.  Sudafed that contained that all important ingredient, pseudoephedrine.  You just can’t get it in New Zealand.  Don’t get me wrong I know why it’s been banned - because it’s a precursor to manufacturing methamphetamine, but when you’re looking for some respite from the mother of all head colds it just does not seem fair. 

Methamphetamine was originally invented as a remedy for asthma, as it opened the airways and dried up mucus.  However, it’s obviously had one of those unintended consequences.  Kind of like when they figured out how to split the atom. 

Last night I was shunned to the spare room. 

“You’re so bloody noisy,” she said at half past 3 in the morning.  “I can’t believe the sheer range of old man noises you are making.  It’s revolting!” 

Charming I thought, where’s the empathy?  

However after a bit of reflection I realised that when you’re self absorbed into the feverish world of head cold hell, you have little empathy yourself.  You forget about the poor buggers around you, be it at home or work.  Snuffling and honking, whinging and crying, leaving a trail of tissues in your wake and scaring everyone with the promise of infection.  “You should be at home, you shouldn’t be at work.”

“I’m not infectious, my mucus is clear.”

“Yuk! they reply.” 

I think having a head cold in New Zealand has parallels with having a disability.  Why?  Because you can’t get bloody Sudafed - just the same as if you have poor eyesight and we hadn’t invented glasses or contact lenses, it would be a disability. 

Yes, head colds are a nasty thing.  They make you feel fairly negative after a period of time. You get more and more insular in your thoughts upon how miserable your lot is and start obsessing about things that don’t really matter.   

Just as sometimes people with disabilities can focus on their own individual circumstances and become somewhat tunnel visioned. It’s always good to stick your head over the parapet now and then and see that there is a bigger wider world out there with some pretty scary issues to grapple with. Just look at people living in cars in Aotearoa, Trump on the rampage in the US, Turkey melting down, Germany and France plagued by wanna-be Isis loners…    

So, I guess the moral is to us run-of-the-mill whingers: Got an issue, get a tissue! And lots of them. 

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Published 09/08/2016