During Thanksgiving, I had an encounter with an olive pit, and broke off a point from a molar. This led to a root canal on 9 December following the usual course of anti-biotics + medrol dosepack. The crown goes in on Monday. December was a stressful month all around; a local friend is nearing death from ALS, my granddaughter was born prematurely on Dec 10, and she has been on life support in the MCV NICU, now weighing just 1.1kg. And there is the on-going project of getting my nonagenarian parents into assisted living. On Dec 19 I had the first indications of sore throat. Dec 20 I was worse, but not terribly sick. By Dec 21, I was much worse. From 22 to 27 December I did not leave the house due to a chronic cough and being snot-boarded every time I lay down. I was just barely well enough to return to work on 2 January. Today, I feel OK (minus being tired from the experience, and the periodic joint pain w/ nighttime overheating), but I still start coughing if I talk for more than a few minutes because my breathing system is inflamed. I have had the flu shot, the pneumonia series, and now the Shingrix -- our family does innoculations full-on. During this time, my wife remained well, and my grandson (age 4 1/2) had a runny nose, but did not seem to be ill enough to even slow down. Bottom line: no one around me seems to have been anywhere near as ill as I am, if ill at all. I did not seek medical treatment because of two factors: the misplaced expectation that I was going to feel better "tomorrow," and the expectation that because I did not seem to have pneumonia, the medical business was likely to be unreceptive to the complaint[s]. Treatment consisted only of guaifenesin, and a failed experiment with the less than effective "non-narcotic cough suppressant." I have tried to educate myself about the basics of rhematological conditions, and this reading led me to believe that the only doctor who might want to know is you. This problem of getting over winter colds seems to get worse each year. I have no evidence that my problem is related to rheumatology, but it seems that from the outlook of science, the best place to look for causes is where problems have already been found.