When a voice actor gets sick - Or, what I learned about misery this week.

Until this week I hadn’t been sick in two years. I attribute this to my generally good nutrition, regular exercise, and a bottle of the black elderberry extract I take when I feel like I might be coming down with something (it’s supposed to have potent anti-viral properties). But this week my usual arsenal was no match for the flu bug that my sons brought home with them and actually, I had run out of elderberry syrup and replaced it with capsules which seemed like a more economical way to achieve the desired result. Either the capsules just don’t work as well or there was nothing that was going to stand in this bug’s way - I’ve had a fever and wicked respiratory symptoms for 5 days. Now that I seem to be on the road to recovery though, and thus cannot be accused of whining, I wanted to make note of a few things that helped me.

There are scads of over-the-counter remedies for cold and flu symptoms, and I must say, there isn’t much of value out there. I’ve never found a commercial product that has any effect on a dry, hacking cough. Yesterday, at the height of my misery and despair, I Googled “dry cough relief” and came up with a most astonishing recipe. It contains cayenne pepper, ginger, cider vinegar and honey. I mixed up this potion, wondering if I was the world’s most gullible person, but I was truly desperate. I tentatively tasted the brew, blinked rapidly numerous times and yelled, “I say!!” It did not taste good, but it was not the nastiest thing I’d ever tasted either. It was extremely potent and extraordinarily effective. Whereas up until that minute I could hardly stop coughing, I was able to take a lovely nap after this, undisturbed by the vicious hacking. And I have scarcely coughed since. I took a few more doses of pepper potion during the afternoon and evening, attempted to drown myself in my Neti pot, and then took a hit of an oxymetazoline hydrochloride 0.05% spray (the generic equivalent of Afrin) at bedtime. My sinuses by this time were pretty worn out from abuse, but I managed to sleep peacefully for about 7 hours, my first good night’s sleep in 5 days. I still woke up with a fever and my throat felt like I’d left it out on a craggy mountain peak at around 12,000 feet elevation with a cold wind blowing, but as the day wore on it became clear that I was out of the woods. Oh, and slippery elm tea is a must for soothing the throat. I use Throat Coat by Traditional Medicinals , purchased at the local supermarket. It's pricey at nearly $5 per box of 16 bags, but it's worth it.

So, what effect did this have on my voice-over work? Needless to say, it wasn’t a good thing, but I managed to get most of my work out of the way early in the week before my voice sounded too terrible. I had some scripts from a regular client yesterday and today and promised them I would re-do them in a few days if they wanted me to, and then had some jobs come in late today that I plan to do tomorrow when I’m pretty sure I will sound normal or close to it. In short, I sort of dodged raindrops all week and managed to get through without having to say I was too sick to work. The universe can be quite obliging that way, and I was pretty darn lucky this week.

You will doubtless want the recipe for the anti-cough potion and here it is:

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon powdered ginger
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons water

Dose: maybe 2 teaspoons

I accept no responsibility for what will happen to you if you try it. For me, it was miraculous. My thanks to Bonnie K. McMillen, RN for sharing the recipe.