I hab a code

I got attacked by a sudden onset cold Wednesday.

9am: tickle in throat

11am: sore throat

2pm: coughing

4pm: chest felt bruised, exhausted from coughing

Started taking OTC cold med every 4 hours and went to bed after drinking a quart of OJ. Woke every 3h45m coughing, drank some water, peed, and took more med. By Thursday morning had swollen glands and very sore abdominal muscles! Drank some hot chamomile tea and trundled off to Doc – not strep, yay! Bought more cold medicine, spent afternoon dozing, reading, coughing. Sucrets helped with sore throat but now nose clogging up and bleeding from blowing too much.

I'm an annoyingly whiny sick person. It's a good think I don't get sick very often! But it really points out one of my weakest areas – health and remedies. I don't have many remedy reference guides. I looked at the index of “Medicinal Plants and Herbs”: No entries for expectorant. Cough – throughout. Colds – about 60 plants, more than that for sore throats, but hey, less than 50 for analgesics! Well gosh.

I guess the lesson from all this is that while I would eventually like to learn what the forest has to offer for future ailments, it is such an infrequent need that I will continue to depend on modern pharmaceuticals while focusing on other more frequents needs, like food and shelter! Not exactly sustainable, but one of the most important lessons I have learned to cling to in times of daunting obstacles is simply: start where you're at.