I’ve been thinking so much about it in the past two weeks that I figured there must be a poetry of phlegm. Just look at the word. If it were spelled flem, it would not be worthy. But the ph! The silent g!
Yeah, I know that those features come from its etymology: “late 14c., fleem, fleume, ‘viscid mucus, discharge from a mucous membrane of the body,’ also the name of one of the four bodily humors, from Old French fleume (13c., Modern French flegme), from Late Latin phlegma, one of the four humors of the body, from Greek phlegma ‘morbid, clammy bodily humor caused by heat;’ literally ‘inflammation, flame, fire, heat,’ from phlegein ‘to burn,’ related to phlox (genitive phlogos) ‘lame, blaze,’ from PIE bhleg- ‘to shine, flash,’ from root bhel- (1) ‘to shine, flash, burn.'”
Here are a few poems. My favorite is the first, by David Fisher, titled Ahem This Phlegm, which begins:
Ahem this phlegm
In snotty body
Needs and pleads
A hotty-toddy.
Suffice to say, the stuffy head/sore throat/coughing jags thing I have – oh, and my daughter has- experienced is still lingering, although neither of us has a fever. Sleeping is difficult for me because mucus lodges in my throat or chest, and I need a coughing jag to dislodge it. Meanwhile, my wife has a similar ailment, manifesting mostly as fatigue and laryngitis
Viva la difference
BTW, since you didn’t ask, the difference between phlegm and mucus: All phlegm is mucus, but not all mucus is phlegm. The phlegm is clear, BTW, which is a good thing, but no less exhausting to deal with.
Last week, I bought a friend an OTC labeled DM, which contains dextromethorphan, a cough suppressant, and guaifenesin, an expectorant, per their doctor’s suggestion. Since they have trouble swallowing pills, I opted for the liquid concoction. For my daughter and me, I got the pills, which were sizable.
I ran out of the pills. The package seemed as though it’d hold 30-60 pills, but it only had 14. So I had to go back to the CVS and get a different liquid, which was locked up. (Some guy had gone to a clerk and said, “I need shampoo, but it’s locked up.” The clerk replied, “It’s supposed to be.” That would be a weird reply in 20th-century America.)
My wife and I went to a celebration of life in Hartford, CT, for the ex-husband of one of my wife’s best friends since college. The only way I could sleep at all was by sitting up, which was frequently interrupted.
I’m so exhausted that it took me three tries to write 450 words, evben though I knew whayt I wanted to say. ZZZZZZ. Wait, what?
