New Math

Pedi_ward_4A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. -Irish Proverb

Travel + Work + Flu (Double Secret Pneumonia? Bronchitis? Vitamin Deficiency?) = Not a Thought in My Head and Sleep to the 10th Power (and just the tiniest bit of WHINING, as you might imagine).

Back soonish, I hope.

If you have home remedies I should try, by all means, now’s not the time to hold back.

UPDATE: A wonderful reader named Shawn emailed to suggest that “your avid blog readers should each submit a phrase from a book they are reading, just to keep your mind busy and a smile blooming…” Ah, yes, medicine for the mind and soul. What are you reading now that is making its mark on you? In Shawn’s case, one was a quote from Jodi Picoult: “”Hope…was the exact measure of distance between himself and the person who’d come to him for help.” And for you? Leave a trace…

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

22 comments to " New Math "
  • Oh dear. Poor you! No home remedy except the usual. For head cold/chest congestion slather on the Vicks and take in lots of warm fluids like chicken soup and tea with honey. Lie in bed with a hot water bottle and doze while listening to music and books on tape all day. Bore yourself well! ;-)

    Hope you feel better soon.

  • Becky

    Hot herbal tea, hot soup and lots of rest! I’m sorry your sick. I heard this has been a horrible flu season this year. Hopefully no one else in your family catches it! *Passes Patti a hot cup of lavender tea*

  • mary castagnoli

    Slather Vick’s (or Mentholatum if you in your medicine chest) on your feet. Be generous – tops and bottoms. Slide on a pair of your grandfather’s black socks and wear to bed. (I’m think by stipulating “grandfather’s” black socks, they mean those stretchy – nylon kind. But you might try one nylon and one cotton and see which half of you feels betters in the a.m. I’m definitely NOT making light of your illness – I would rather go through labor than my bouts with bronchitis and flu. Hoping you feel 100% really soon!

  • Sheila

    hmmmm… what DOES a vegan do without chicken soup when ill?? That is my go-to when sick. That and 7-Up.

    From my nursing school days, our instructor’s advice for treating pneumonia patients was to “keep the pulmonary toilet flushing.”
    -Lots of liquids = thinner mucous.
    -Huff coughing to expel it.
    -(I know you won’t feel like it, but) get up and move because you are actually using your lungs more and the mucous *has* to move.
    -“Turn, cough, deep breathe every 2 hours” is standard protocol for patients who are bedridden.
    -And my personal favorite is a warm steamy shower, even though that’s the last thing you think you want.

    I hope you feel better soon! (Would another call from Billy help? ;> )

  • Sheila

    Oh! And some spicy stuff… maybe your version of mexican with a kick?

  • Victoria (mizamigo)

    I don’t have any home remedies – just drink plenty of fluids to keep you hydrated. Sleep a lot! And feel better soon!

  • brenda lux

    My husband was just sick for a week. He actually listened to me and now swears by: Smith’s Rosebud Salve for under/in nose; netti pot; and Cepastat Sugar Free Oral Anesthetic Lozenges with Phenol, Menthol Eucalyptus Flavor for sore throat. Hope you’re better soon!

  • Virginia W. Pence

    One of my favorite people is a retired pastor who at least weekly sends a post from “The Pastor’s Scrapbook.”

    This is the one that arrived this morning:

    Luke 10:25-37 – The Old Familiar Good Samaritan
    “Everyone is your neighbor. You should help them even if it’s dangerous,
    and even if they’re your enemy.”

    Read it again, and be not comforted.

  • Patti–here’s my contribution toward distracting the spirit and mind:

    The Road Home
    An ant hurries along a threshing floor with its wheat grain, moving between the huge stacks

    of wheat, not knowing the abundance all around. It thinks its one grain is all there is to

    love. So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to. This body, one path or one teacher. Look

    wider and farther. The essence of every human being can see, and what that esssence-eye takes

    in, the being becomes. Saturn. Solomon! The ocean pours through a jar, and you might say it

    swims inside the fish! This mystery gives peace to your longing and makes the road home home.

    (from The Soul of Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks)

    Sending megawatts of healing light your way!

  • Oh sweet Patti!
    I would put a dime size spot of olive oil (or sweet almond or whatever you have) in your palm, then drop about 8 drops of pure oregano oil, about 5 drops of teatree or eucalyptus or melaleuca oil, mix, and rub on the bottoms of your feet. Then, wash your hands WELL. Only the soles of your feet can tolerate the strength of oregano oil. Next, a quarter size spot of oil, then 6 drops (or so) of lavendar oil, 6 drops of teatree oil, mix and rub all over your shoulders, neck, chest and back.
    Also, garlic tea is a miracle cure:
    boil water, add chopped clove of garlic
    let it steep
    add some honey and some fresh lemon juice
    enjoy! it might sound horrible, but it’s really delicious.
    Next:
    onion poultice for chest
    chop onions and put them into a tea towel. place in warmed (low temp) oven just until you can smell them. Place on chest. It works wonders to thin mucous and bring up chest congestion.
    I’d also be taking tinctures every four hours: astragalus and echinicea.
    And of course mega doses of Vitamin C.
    And yes, the best thing of all is hot tea, a funny movie or funny book, fresh flowers in a vase beside you, and never forget
    you are loved and cherished by SOOOOOOOO many!! We’ll be thinking of you and you’ll be healthy before you were even ready to give up the whining! ;o)

  • Betsy

    Read this last night on the plane home from New Orleans (via weather-delayed-layover in Houston):
    “All sensible people know that if you are tired and hungry a meal will do you good. But the modern theory of nourishment—all about the vitamins and proteins—is a different thing. People ate their dinners and felt better long before the theory of vitamins was ever heard of: and if the theory of vitamins is some day abandoned they will go on eating their dinners just the same.”
    — CS Lewis in “Mere Christianity”

  • Ashley

    From Little Women, which I am reading for the n-th time:

    My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have you make a dash in the world, – marry rich men merely because they are rich, or have splendid houses, which are not homes because love is wanting. Money is a needful and precious thing, – and, when well used, a noble thing, – but I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for. I’d rather see you poor men’s wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace.

  • Elizabeth

    Here’s my quote from a columnist at the NY Times, David Brooks.

    “But those in the grips of Obama Comedown Syndrome began to wonder if His stuff actually made sense. For example, His Hopeness tells rallies that we are the change we have been waiting for, but if we are the change we have been waiting for then why have we been waiting since we’ve been here all along?”

    link to the particular column:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/opinion/19brooks.html

    I laughed out loud several times. Laughter is a proven cure for all ills. Feel better!

  • medicinal hot drink;
    Fresh Ginger Root, Honey, Lemon, Cinnamon and if you can handle them- add fresh crushed Garlic and a dash of Cayenne too.

    also, Miso soup seems to have magical healing powers.

    I am reading an article- it’s 4 pages long
    here is an excerpt and a link…I find knowing what we can act on (as activists) important- so here is a link:
    http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/feature/2002/08/27/women_directors/

  • Barbara D.

    So sorry to hear you are ill. This sore throat home remedy has served me well for more than 30 years: a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water. Gargle, sip. Do this every few hours. Increase vinegar a bit if you can tolerate taste. I don’t know how it works and hope it is safe, as my sore throats never last when I do this. Usual disclaimers: I am not in the medical field and have never been on tv.

    Oh yes – you also need to pop in a favorite romance or comedy movie.
    Best to you for a speedy recovery.

  • Allan Smithee

    2.22.2008
    Sleep, n.

    That state of an animal in which the voluntary exertion of his mental and corporeal powers is suspended, and he rests unconscious of what passes around him, and not affected by the ordinary impressions of external objects.

    : Situation

    Webster’s Daily returns [Ed. Note]

    Apologies for the absence of several months. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

    http://webstersdaily.blogspot.com/

  • I found a deck chair at the edge of the sea. I could hear small lapping sounds beside me, as if a kindly monster was taking discreet sips of water from a large goblet. A few birds were waking up and beginning to career through the air in matinal excitement. Behind me, the raffia roofs of the hotel bungalows were visible through gaps in the trees. Before me was a view that I recognized from the brochure: the beach stretched away in a gentle curve towards the tip of the bay, behind it were jungle-covered hills, and the first row of coconut trees inclined irregularly towards the turquoise sea, as though some of them were craning their necks to catch a better angle of the sun.

    Yet this description only imperfectly reflects what occurred within me that morning, for my attention was in truth far more fractured and confused than the foregoing paragraphs suggest. I may have noticed a few birds careering through the air in matinal excitement, but my awareness of them was weakened by a number of other, incongruous and unrelated elements, among these, a sore throat that I had developed during the flight, a worry at not having informed a colleague that I would be away, a pressure across both temples and a rising need to visit the bathroom. A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance: that I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

    from “The Art of Travel” by Alain de Botton (my apologies for the length – I was going for the laugh)

  • Rose

    Take a vit D every day, (this really boosts your immunity) and , of course, plenty of C, Also, to help you breathe, some eucalyptus oil from the health food store rubbed under your nose is a must!!! also, a multiple B doesn’t hurt. I haven’t had a cold or the flu in over 20 years!!! I hear the flu is must worse this year because the flu shot doesn’t quite match the virus which is going around. Hope you recover soon!
    Rose

  • If you’re still looking for engaging literary passages, here’s an article that I wrote listing my favourites, and its comments thread has 15 more from readers, some of which are absolutely amazing: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/03/01.html#a1452

  • Sun Dog, by Monique Roffey –

    ‘Soon afterwards, he’d found the first bud under his tongue:tiny, like a swamp mussel. He’d let it stay sucking at the bed of his mouth, a minute angel, a pearl, a pulse. It made him feel relaxed, the opposite of ill. It gave him a strange sense of solace. For the first time in his life, apart from when he danced, he sensed a calmness in his blood, an ease in himself. Balance. He stopped taking notes when the buds appeared in clusters. His body delighted and frightened him at once. Buds appeared all over his body, egg-greyish hives. He’d thrown away his notebook, torn up the charts. Instinct told him there was no reason to panic, there would be an answer. Whatever was happening had its own methods, its own logic. He would watch and wait, see it out. He never went back to the doctor.’

    Be well soon.

  • John Ptak

    As your secret double attorney I suggest that you fill up the bath with hot soapy water, float four (4)glasses of hot run toddies in the soothing waters, and then get into the tub and drink them. If th rum doesn’t work, well, you won’t care after four of them.

  • Last year in about June (winter in this part of the world) I caught a head cold. Felt miserable, and to make it worse, was about to jump on a plane and travel to somehwre now forgotten. All I could think of was the pain my sinuses would have to endure. So off to the doc I trotted. His suggestion? Beyond garlic and horseradish tabs, hot lemon, rest and paracetemol for the pain? A swim. Yes a swim – not in a nice warm pool, but in the ocean. The southern ocean. With water temperatures of 12 degrees! I think he was mad – I went home and had a drink instead.

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