malvasia bianca

Now I’m in my second week of flu. I could do without this.

From the virus’s point of view, the only point is to spread itself. Which breaks down into two components: reproduction and transmission. I’m not sure exactly where the reproduction is happening in my body; is it all over the place, or are some parts of my body hotbeds of disease reproduction while other parts aren’t helping in the cause?

As far as transmission goes, the mechanism is pretty clear: I’ve been coughing like crazy for the last few days, once my throat got irritated enough by the flow of mucus that’s been going down it. So are the nasal cavities where the virus has been reproducing itself? If so, is the mucus production somehow directly involved in the reproduction, or is it triggered separately somehow? Certainly a convenient mechanism for the virus: make lots of yourself, hang out in mucus that irritates the throat, causing said mucus to be coughed out into the rest of the world.

For that matter, why does the mucus lead to coughing in the first place? Why does it bother my throat for all that mucus to be going down it?

And what about the headaches? What causes them? Are they some sort of necessary byproduct of this process, or just a random side effect? Hmm. And the temperature changes?

At least I’m not getting serious body aches, like when I came down with the flu in college. That was really awful.