Singing While Sick

The cold is fully in force now. I took some Nyquil last night, which let me sleep but I think I finally see the light and agree with those who say it dries you out too much. Woke up this morning with no voice. I was resigning myself to cancelling my two appearances today but in Runner's World I read about this marathoner who pulled a muscle while trying to get away from a dog during a training run, and that cost him several victories though ultimately he won the silver this past Olympics. The point? S@#$ happens--winners find a way around it. I got on the Web and looked up "singing with a cold" and actually found a wealth of information, which I've been following. There's a great article here by a vocal coach, Mark Baxter. I'm going to follow his guidelines, warming up very very slowly over the next few hours (and not taking any more antihistamines). And then I'm going to religiously avoid getting another cold. I have so many more gigs than ever before, so this is an issue I have to deal with. Of course, it's not the first time, and it could have been worse--I could have been like this just before the Reno Jazz Orchestra performance or something. But as he says, colds are inevitable, so you've got to learn to sing with them and avoid most of them, not only by washing hands/not touching eyes-nose-mouth/not touching other people/avoiding sick people but also through diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction and avoiding abrupt temperature changes. All this is advice that I would scoff at in the past, but there will be no more scoffing, mark my words!