A paler shade of yellow: Feeling a bit phlegmish

So last week I came down with this annoying cold.   And their is nothing worse than a spring cold because at best they're middling and inconvenient, at their worst, they can sideline you from early springtime fun.

Everything was progressing according to plan - tickling in the throat one day, up into the head then next, then down into the chest and cough, cough, cough for six days - and the blasted thing seemed like it was winding down when: BAM, yesterday at about 2PM I started feeling awful.   How awful?  Like immediate fever, woozy head and that inner voice saying "Uh-Oh..."  We were out running errands and when I got home I took my temperature (101 degrees) and I went right to bed.

Last night it was worse, fever, chills and every joint in my body hurt so bad that I slept for two hours and was up at  6AM shaking like a leaf.

So husband took the dogs to daycare and I hunkered down.  At 8:10 I called the doctor to see if I could get in and they said come right now - don't even shower.

So I get into the doctors office and the nurse takes me back to the exam room, and we start that delightful dance of "What color is it?"

Her: Are you coughing up anything?

Me: Yes.

Her: What color is it?

Now I've been going to this doctors office for over 15 years because I love them, and my doctor is so damn cute, just seeing him makes me feel better even before he lays a hand on me.  But this part of the exam always leaves me at a loss.

Her: Does it have a color?

Me: Yeah.

Her: Is it yellow, greenish yellow, dark yellow, brown?

Brown?

What do you say?  Buttercream? Yellow, but not a cold hospital yellow?  Summer Sunshine Blush?  Amana Avocado Range?

She wrote her notes down, and few minutes later, the doctor came in and professed that there is a cold virus going around that doesn't seem like much until the bitter end when it smacks you down to remind you how miserable you could have been if it really felt like it.  I have that.

Again we went through the color spectrum of my "lung butter", and he started toying with me.  "Is it chunky?  Chunky is bad," and "Do you swallow it or spit it out? Whatever you do, don't swallow it - that's just plain gross."

He wrote two scripts, one for my cough and one for my phlegm flowage and I was off.   "Other than that, invest in Kleenex, drink plenty of water and if it gets worse see me first of next week."

"Remember, be on the look out for chunky lung butter."

Lung butter, indeed.