Greetings,

A bowl of healing Tom Yum Gung.
Photo, courtesy of CNN.  
Click here for story.

That malaise of an oncoming cold haunted me all week long.  I had work to do, people to see, and I refused to yield to the common cold.

Hard Facts: In the course of a year, individuals in the United States suffer 1 billion colds, according to some estimates.  Colds are most prevalent among children, and seem to be related to youngsters' relative lack of resistance to infection and to contacts with other children in day-care centers and schools. Children have about six to ten colds a year. In families with children in school, the number of colds per child can be as high as 12 a year. Adults average about two to four colds a year, although the range varies widely. Women, especially those aged 20 to 30 years, have more colds than men, possibly because of their closer contact with children. On average, individuals older than 60 have fewer than one cold a year. ~ Source.  

In view of the facts, having a cold is just one of those pesky things in life and one consolation of aging is fewer colds. While I'm not letting down by guard,  today, I am fighting the good fight, blitzing it with home remedies, reinforced with lots of old-fashioned TLC (tender loving care) from DH:

Home remedies:

• Hot tea spiked with tincture of Echinacea.

• Gargle with pa`akai (Hawaiian salt) dissolved in hot water.

• Vitamin C.

• Think Zinc (Cold-Eez lozenges, Zicam).

• Aspirins.

• A long hot soak in the tub.

TLC from DH: The exact prescription I need:

• Finding the package of Obachan's Wet Lemon Peel for me from the care package from Hawai`i.

• Putting me to bed early, tucking me in nice and snug under Grandmother's cotton futon. "Rest, rest and more rest."

• Pulling the cherry-flavored Nyquil out of the deep recesses for "restful sleep."

• Occasionally checking my forehead for temperature rises, while keeping a safe distance (my lips are zipped for the duration).

• And last, and perhaps, most effective: 
  
  Tom Yum Gung, a spicy Thai shrimp soup, with herbs like coriander and lemon grass, that always seems to have a salutatory effect and is always delicious.  Here's a recipe from CNN.

I feel better already.

past    the present    future

who | what | archives | comments | photos