DIRECTIONS: You have a cold. Read the box, then say whose side each symptom is on, and what it is for.
Nearly all of it is you.
A cold virus is not big enough or busy enough to make a whole person ache. What it does is get in and copy itself. What makes you FEEL ill is your own body noticing and responding.
The heat is your body deliberately turning itself up, because most germs copy themselves best at your normal temperature and worse when it is warmer. The runny nose is fluid arriving with the things that fight infection in it. The cough is getting the mess out. The aching and the tiredness are chemical signals that make you lie still, which is exactly what a body fighting something needs you to do.
Symptom
Whose side is it on, and what is it for?
Feeling too hot
A runny nose
Coughing
Aching, and not wanting to get up
Most of It Is You — So Why Take Anything?
What keeps a body working · Page 2 of 2
Not medical advice. A fever can go too high, and what to do about it is a doctor's call.
If a fever is your body helping itself, say why somebody might take medicine to bring it down anyway. Give a real reason, not just "it feels bad".
Two people catch the same virus. One is much iller than the other. Using this sheet, give an explanation that is not "one of them got more virus".
Somebody says "I have got rid of my cold, I only have the cough left". Say what is odd about that sentence.