In case you were wondering, I didn’t write a “Farm & Ranch Life” column last week as I intended. My wife, Marilyn, and I were in Utah keeping an eye on two grandchildren (ages 6 and 4) who were out of school during the holidays while their parents worked.

I came home to Iowa early to attend a much-loved family member’s funeral and to catch up on work, including writing this week’s column.

Keeping an eye on our grandchildren is an overstatement because they manage themselves mostly okay. We shoveled snow, wrapped presents, played games and attended “The Nutcracker” ballet; then, both became ill with colds and ear infections.

Marilyn and I apparently caught what they had – or more likely, what they had caught us. When I announced to Marilyn that I would write about winter colds, she laughed (I’m not sure if she was laughing with or at me).

Everyone can get colds, or “shipping fever,” as I prefer to call my respiratory illnesses. Colds are similar to what newly-purchased cattle often contracted prior to arriving at our farm and which I am afflicted with currently: runny nose, sneezing, draggy feeling, scratchy throat, a persistent cough and little appetite for food.

The cattle were exposed to respiratory viruses to which they had little immunity in the sale barns and livestock trucks. They also were stressed by crowding, getting prodded and little rest during shipping.

It’s well known that stress compromises animal and human immune systems. Marilyn and I both have been stressed lately with many unexpected requests for assistance; I have been particularly busy responding to hundreds of emails and phone calls, since recent articles about farmers’ behavioral health to which I contributed were published in December.

I checked with two physician friends and that well-known online reference, Wikipedia, for useful information about the common cold. All said the average duration of a common cold is about three weeks; symptoms usually peak 2-4 days after onset. A post-viral cough is common and can linger for another two weeks and turn into pneumonia or bronchitis; the latter nearly always occurs in me.

My coughing spells erupt in the most embarrassing circumstances, such as when I am giving a speech, talking on the phone or conversing with people at a public event. Sometimes I tell audiences ahead of time to expect that I might sound like I am about to heave forth my lungs or die, but I won’t do either after my body releases a burst of adrenalin that quells my hacking attack.

My mother told me that whooping cough as a youngster made me vulnerable to respiratory illnesses.

Consumption of vitamin C, decongestants and cough suppressant medications sometimes diminish the severity of colds and reduce coughing spells and runny noses, but not always. I remember an elementary school teacher who was a Franciscan nun and who gave my sixth-grade classmates and me a lesson about how to blow our noses.

My male classmates and I competed to produce the loudest trumpeting when we blew our noses, whether we had colds or not. Our teacher emphasized proper hygiene: “What’s the first thing you do when you have to blow your nose?”

A classmate, whose identity I won’t reveal, dutifully answered, “First, you take out your handkerchief and find a clean spot.” (Just so you know, that sodden square piece of cloth in our pockets, purses or tucked up our sleeves was pronounced “hang-KER-chef.”)

You get the idea; this was a fruitless lesson. We never got to the part about apologizing with an “Excuse me” or something along those lines.

My physician friends and Wikipedia say most adults acquire 2-4 colds per year, while children acquire about twice as many colds until their immune systems gradually develop resistance to the onslaught of viral cold bugs. Unfortunately, viruses can mutate readily, which contributes to frequent infections of our respiratory systems.

Colds tend to be more common during chilly weather. Experts say this occurs because the cold air we breathe is drier and allows infected people to broadcast germs farther than usual (about 3 feet) when sneezing, coughing, blowing our noses or just breathing.

Deficient sleep, excessive worry and significant changes in routines can increase the likelihood of experiencing a cold. The common cold is the most frequent disease for humans and many animals, but the occurrence of colds diminishes as we age and accumulate resistance to the dastardly viruses.

So, don’t worry that you will suffer severely from a cold unless it develops into a more serious infectious condition. Think instead that a cold might actually improve your immunity to colds around children and animals.

It’s time to make my New Year resolutions for 2018, and take a dose of cough syrup.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Dr. Mike Rosmann is a psychologist and farmer in western Iowa. Readers may contact him at mike@agbehavioralhealth.com