Urgent help needed!: A cure for the common cold

Martians dying of the common cold.

A week on the 'dead late' shift in freezing temperatures has given me a rotten cold.

I'd planned to finish my book over the next 5 days of annual leave.

I feel terrible.

Suggestions, please. Urgent!

Stay in bed for the day
...a clove of crushed garlic, half a squeezed lemon and a big spoonful of honey topped with hot water in the morning
...soup and dry toast
...honey and lemon juice and rum/brandy/whisky topped with hot water night.

I hope you get well soon.

Pinz's and Moonie's advice sounds best. When I have a cold I try to sleep as much as possible to just get through it.

Madeleine is home today for the second day with a fever. She goes to the MD today. She either has a bad cold or strep throat, I think.

Feel better soon!

Madeleine had a strep test and it was negative. So she has a bad cold.

Ed, the MD told her to have hot tea or water with honey.

So you have a little company with your cold. She watched episodes of House on the computer for two days.

Are you reading to pass the time?

^

Thanks for the advice. I've cherry-picked: hot drinks, whisky, bed, Lem-Sip. It's gone to my chest, as these things tend to do if you're a smoker. The writing's on hold; I'm just not in the mood.

Constance, I'm passing the time by posting here and re-reading Patrick O'Brian for the nth time. Comfort reading, you see: nothing too challenging. I've reached this one in the Aubrey-Maturin series:

How are you feeling now, Eddie?

Vera Cruz wrote:How are you feeling now, Eddie?

Ventured out today for the first time in about 2-3 days.

Went to Waterstone's book store in Canary Wharf to redeem a voucher I'd received for being an exemplary employee. (Very strange because I despise the Management of the company I have the misfortune to work for.) Bought five books.

Did some shopping: medicine, whisky, orange juice, microwaved meals for when I feel like eating again. I suppose the positive aspect of all this is that I'll lose a few pounds in weight: no bad thing.

^

Oh, and I've been using Nicorette patches on my forearm to stop the craving for cigarettes. Not entirely successful, but they do work, up to a point.

eddie wrote:Bought five books.

The Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
Pure- Andrew Miller
Ghost Milk- Iain Sinclair
Bedlam: London and its Mad- Catharine Arnold
City of Sin: London and its Vices- Catharine Arnold

but are you planning to give up smoking or you're trying not to smoke to ease the cold?

eddie wrote:Ventured out today for the first time in about 2-3 days

the street is a strange place when you're used to the a-few-metres-or-less-distance from the wall

Vera Cruz wrote:but are you planning to give up smoking or you're trying not to smoke to ease the cold?

The latter.

The Waterstone's background music for browsing studious bookworms consisted of Whitney Houston (topical) and, inexplicably, Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. 'Inexplicably' because I've been singing that song to myself quite a bit recently.

What you say is absolutely true, Vera, about the disorientation one experiences after hitting the streets after a few days staring at four walls. The medication I've been taking says "Non-Drowsy" on the packaging, but there were a couple of other odd synchronistic events in the course of my short shopping expedition concerning a) the Chronicles of Narnia (see above) and b) a possible half-sighting of someone I know on the train to Canary Wharf. Too complicated to go into here, but very spacey.

I've checked on the bathroom scales, BTW, and yes, I've lost about three pounds. Good.

Patrick O'Brian, I'll give it a try. First I have to reread Atonement.

Good work on the smoking and dieting. I'm losing weight too like I said on the other thread. Five weeks going hungry to lose 10 lbs.

hey eddie...hope you're picking up.
Nicorette patches worked quite well for me for a while but when I had a few cigarettes while wearing one...I had a severe allergic reaction
I haven't had a ciggie for 6 weeks now. I feel so much better...years younger.

Constance! You've lost 10 lbs in 5 weeks? That's awesome! I've been eating less and moving more for 5 weeks now. I feel great...but haven't lost an ounce.

Moonie, so glad you're staying away from the cigarettes. That is such a hard habit to break and it is so good for you to stop the cigarettes.

But I eat very little. I just shut my stomach down. I did this three years ago and got to 106 lbs. and I was wearing my daughters' clothes. Then stupidly I gained some weight back again. I'm eating celery, carrots, grapefruit (I peel it and eat it like an orange, vegetable juice and at night I eat some baguette with feta cheese.And drink chicken boullion, that seems to fill me up. The carrots take a long time to chew and swallow. I share them with the dog who loves carrots.She will sit down next to me and lay her head in my lap. I don't know if the day's walk does anything for me aerobically because I walk so slowly.

Tom just made oatmeal for himself and Elisabeth but if I ate any of it I'd just want more. Yesterday he made lentil soup but I just went for the carrots and celery.If I ate some I would just want more. Tom loves to cook and has been making dinner for the girls so I can stay out of the kitchen. One of my friends is mad at me for not eating a balanced diet, but if I eat more I get wildly hungry. Once on this crash diet I think my stomach shrinks.

After I do the mountains of laundry I'll eat my grapefruit and take the dog for a walk.

blue moon wrote:hey eddie...hope you're picking up.
Nicorette patches worked quite well for me for a while but when I had a few cigarettes while wearing one...I had a severe allergic reaction

Hi Moony. Been back at work for two days. Still not fully recovered but being around colleagues again is probably good for morale. The isolation was getting me down, as was the frustration and guilt about not feeling well enough to finish the book.

I've been smoking with the Nicorette patches, but not as much. No allergic reaction as yet. And I think they act as an appetite supressant to a certain extent, too.

Constance!...I would feel sooooo deprived eating celery, carrots, grapefruit etc.
I had an eating disorder when younger. I ate fruit and drank gallons of scalding hot black coffee in an effort to fill up and warm up...but I was always empty. I was always cold. Always. Unfortunately I didn't live in the tropics then so 'fruit' didn't involve mangoes and pawpaw or other delights. I ate apples, oranges and pears. My stomach shrank. I was overjoyed when my bones were prominent and my veins stuck out. I'm glad that's behind me.

When I compare what I eat to what you eat I understand why I'm not shrinking...I tried to incorporate a small amount of jogging into my walk with Blue the other day. I was terribly unco-ordinated and ungainly and so stiff it was hard to get out of bed in the morning. I've sensibly stopped.

Were you once overweight? In your photo you look very slim...but I guess if you lost 105 lbs you must have been carrying around some excess weight. I was an overweight teenager. I couldn't cut down on the amount I ate once I started, but I could rather easily not eat at all.

eddie...glad you're back at work. I think feelings of frustration and guilt always accompany writers. It sounds like you're close to the end now. That's wonderful.

Watch out for the patches. I got away with using them and having an occasional ciggie for a while before they struck me down with red rashes and billiousness.
Sigh...they didn't act as an appetite supressant for me.

Take care. I really really have to get online at home before I go mad from being disconnected.

blue moon wrote:Constance!...I would feel sooooo deprived eating celery, carrots, grapefruit etc.

Were you once overweight? In your photo you look very slim...but I guess if you lost 105 lbs you must have been carrying around some excess weight. I was an overweight teenager. I couldn't cut down on the amount I ate once I started, but I could rather easily not eat at all.

OMG! I was never that overweight! You misread me I think--I said I dieted down to 106. That was three years ago and some weight has creeped back but I don't look "fat." I want to get back to 106 or so so I can wear the slacks that I bought then that are just hanging in the closet. I bought Madeleine a Vassar t-shirt last summer that I want to wear.

But yesterday afternoon I did feel sick from not eating. I ate two rice cakes and had some vegetable juice and felt a little better. I am feeling compulsive and not quite sane about this so I better watch out. I am hungry right now--10.10 am and I don't know if I should eat my grapefruit or cut up some carrot sticks.

...ah...my mistake.
105 lbs is tiny.
I also want to shed a few kilos so my clothes can drape on me rather than intefere with my circulation.
Otherwise I'm in a fairly happy place in my body.
Take care.

blue moon wrote:
105 lbs is tiny.

Take care.

It's a low weight but I'm short, 5'2". I made it through another day without feeing too awful--veggies, rice cakes, and a bowl of rice and some broccoli that was leftover from yesterday. Fed the girls without digging into their dinner. Took a post-pranial nap and now it's 11 and time to really sleep. Taking carrots and grapefruit to Chinese school toomorrow and wary about all the good food there, especially the sticky rice and the meat and vegetable buns. The school has a great "breakfast club"--dedicated women who bring in food to sell as a fundraiser for the school. Then we're going to the big Chinese grocery store which is totally like a big modern store in China and Taiwan. You should see the fish for sale there and the amazing displays of meat. The Chinese eat every part of the cow and pigWe always buy baby bok choy to steam and Chinese eggplant to stir-fry. Then there is a green I like called miao-tze. I think it's the early shoots of soy beans.Elisabeth likes leeks and they have great ones.Then we buy the special fruits--Chinese pairs and Ugly Fruit. Do you have ugly fruit?It's expensive here but deicious. We buy a lot of frozen dumplies to stir-fry or boil.The best thing we buy is sticky rice with pork tied up into a lotus leaf. We put them in the microwave for two minutes, discard the leaf and eat the rice and pork. The girls like it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.We buy a dozen and they don't last long. The store has a cafeteria restaurant where I buy the girls lunch cafeteria style. I usually order 3 and eat their leftovers. If I'm hungry it will be hard to pass that up.Ah ha, I'll bring rice cakes and just take their leftovers home. I'm not hungry now but I'm thinking I better take a thermos of vegetable juice,too. We always spend $100 ('') but the food lasts a long time and the trip to the store is an award for going to Chinese school.

And oh yes, Madeleine's cold is gone and luckily none of the rest of us caught it.