Comfortably Numb

I have a cold. It’s the kind of cold that makes it difficult to sleep, because for some reason all the symptoms are amplified when laying down. So for the past couple of nights I’ve only been able to get 3 or 4 hours of sleep at a time, before I wake up coughing and have to get up for a while in order to get comfortable again. I woke up this morning at 7:03, and decided I needed to find something stronger than the generic tussin I was taking in order to get some real rest.

I dug through my box of medicine and miscellany hoping to find some NyQuil, but instead I found something better: a half-full bottle of codeine cough syrup. The label read December 2001, but it still had that delightfully potent odor I that relate to effectiveness, so I took a dose. No more than two minutes later I felt great. At least, I think I did, but I may have just dreamt it; I don’t remember much after that.

I woke up at 1:30. My tongue was dry and my arms were completely numb. Apparently I had passed out with my mouth wide open and my arms above my head—a position I normally avoid because, obviously, it makes my arms fall asleep. In other words, the codeine worked great. Methinks I’ll be having another dose of that tonight.