It’s Not Just About YOU!

 

Dear friends, when you become ill, although you may think so, it is NOT all about YOU.  No matter how radically ill you feel or how self pity joins you in lamenting your fate, it is never all about YOU.  It’s about the falling people-dominoes, with whom you come in contact.  It is about the people who do not care that they are infecting the rest of the world with their germs.  And it is about you not caring if you are infecting others.  Check out this example of my family meeting the coughing flu that is going around.

Over a month ago, my brother got the coughing croup, this year’s deadly version of the flu.  It began with a small cough and rapidly turned into a vicious, breath-removing hack, which moved into pneumonia.   Two weeks into the cough, he came to my bedroom door, unable to breath easily.  Off to the local community hospital we went, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia and CHF (congestive heart failure).

To add to his woes, he is a dialysis patient.  His kidneys are not functioning to pull the excess fluid out of his body, thus lowering his resistance to any disease.  It also makes care, in a hospital not offering dialysis, impossible.  All too soon, an ambulance took him to a much larger hospital that offered the much needed dialysis.  He stayed a whole three days before returning home.

Once in the confines of the house, he began retching and suffering from diarrhea.  He refused to return to the hospital, although breathing problems persisted.   By the next day, he changed his mind.  Going in, via the Emergency Room entrance, we met a young mother who came in with her son.  While he hacked, sneezed, ran all over the waiting room infecting those who were already sick, she sat transfixed by her cellphone screen.

Patients, like my brother, whose next meeting with a virus or bacteria could be their last, cannot afford such stupidity on the part of others.  I grabbed fresh Kleenex and made him cover his nose and mouth.  The only time Mommy Dearest could be bothered with her own child was when he wanted a ginger ale.  She pulled herself away from the phone screen, got up, walked over to the machines at the end of the waiting area, where she announced, “There are ginger ales in the machines, but I don’t have any money.”  Then she looked over everyone in the room to see if they would give to the worthy cause.  No one did.

With two days remaining in between dialysis sessions, the doctor admitted him to ICU until he could be transferred once more to a hospital providing thee kidney treatment.

Within two days he returned home, still with a tight chest, but breathing much easier than before.  It seems insurance doesn’t really care if patients are well and if the doctors won’t fight them, they are released – still very much in danger.  During his last stay, I succumbed to the dreaded virus.  Unlike my sibling, I immediately went to my doctor, who gave me a tush full of prednisone.   I found the antibiotic she called into the pharmacy in the bag with another medication I had refilled – five days later.  I returned to the good doctor, much worse off than before.  This time I left with a double shot of prednisone in one buttock and a painful injection of penicillin in the other.  An inhaler, cough medication with codeine kicker and the initial antibiotic rounded out my medical care.

The third member of our household, my daughter, bit the dust a few days after I landed in bed.  She, thank goodness, did not get as severe a case.

Five weeks after his first cough, Brother ran through all the doctor’s medications, home brews, holistic goodies and has barely made a dent in this vicious flu epidemic.  And here is the reason, as far as I can see.

 

P-E-O-P-L-E.   People, who don’t give a rat’s fanny that they are infecting the rest of the world.  People, who cannot be inconvenienced to wear masks while they cough their fool heads off or to shield themselves from other coughers.  People who think nothing of handling every magazine in the doctors’ offices, thus grabbing every germ lurking on the covers and between the pages.  People, who refuse to use antibacterial soaps to stop passing along their germs.  People, who do not realize when they have a temperature, they are infectious.  People, who have no regard for anyone other than themselves.

The time came to prove I practiced what I preached.  Due to a serious lack of bread, milk, eggs, and other foods in the pantry, it was inevitable that one of us visit the grocery store.  As the more mobile, less coughing of the three, it fell to me.  Donning a mask, latex gloves and Lysoling everything in my purse, I headed out.  The ladies in the produce department thanked me for thinking of others, as did the cashier and the store manager.  Even my debit card had been disinfected before handing it over to some unsuspecting soul.

As stated at the beginning of this article, once you get sick, it is not just about you.  It is about how you stop trying to infect everyone around you.  We are wearing masks at home.  When I became ill and ran a fever, my rear end stayed in bed.  Anything brought to me was left outside my bedroom door.  Only after a full day of no high temperature, did I venture out, still with mask over face, to the living room.

Even those going to work must consider their fellow workers and take precautions like masks to protect others from germs they bring into the building.  Keeping a spray can of Lysol handy to spray the chairs where others sit may prevent a visitor from catching the bug.

Today, five weeks after the beginning of his flu, brother once again ran a temperature, but no amount of begging or suggesting could make him go back to his room and remain in his own bed.  He did, however, don his mask.  This afternoon, the fever broke.  Daughter Jaimie seems to be over the worst, but I’m telling her to wear her mask around her uncle.  And I am staying as far away as possible.  No matter how much Lysol is sprayed on every surface, it is relatively useless once those spaces are retouched by a feverish and infectious patient, unless resprayed.

Anyone getting the flu should think twice before coming into contact with anyone, even if they have no fever and unless they are wearing a mask and latex gloves to keep down the ‘gifts’ being handed out to others.

A friend suggested trying Onion Tea.  I had heard previously that onions had medicinal uses as anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, but I never tried them in that capacity.  However, since the modern medicines did nothing toward healing, trying Onion Tea seemed easy enough, once my friend sent the simple recipe:

ONION TEA

One large onion, sliced thin and put into a medium sized boiler.  Bring to a boil and steep for about an hour and a half.  Pour into a cup with one tablespoon of honey and one tablespoon of lemon juice.  Drink while as warm as possible.

I found that after drinking it, I began to sweat.  This is, evidently, part of its charm – sweating out the bad.  I had one cup before going to bed and felt much better the following morning.  I made a second cup after breakfast and after the sweating, felt even better as the day progressed.  With new found energy, I cleaned my bedroom, swept all the floors, steam mopped the kitchen and bathrooms and cooked a fairly large lunch.  Before bed that night, I drank a third cup, because it certainly seemed to be working.

In addition to the tea, I used a tea towel wrapped around hot onions  and while still quite warm, placed it on my chest and kept it there all night.  Onions seem to pull infections out of the body.  I did not try the poultice the first night, but gave it a try the second.  Whether it will work for everyone, I cannot promise, but it worked for me.  Note to kidney patients, whose kidneys have totally ceased functioning on their own:  onions have large amounts of phosphorus and, for this reason, onion tea is not something to use on a regular basis.