Germs and bugs and viruses have been running amuck with my family it seems. Hopefully, with us going all Homestead and healthier, next year will be better. But this week, we have a lot about being ill.
My poor hubby has been sick all this week with some horrible respiratory ailment that's quite thoroughly kicked his butt. The worst part is that he hasn't been home to get the tender loving care one deserves when miserably ill. No Jewish penicillin, no raw honey, no eucalyptus and lavender vaporizer filling the air with healing warmth, and no loving wife to rub his back and pamper him well. Ok, I pamper as much as I can, but I can only handle so much testicle induced whining. LOL. I'll be honest. None the less, I felt horrible for my devoted spouse. He busts his hump in order to provide for us and now he has to suffer in the back of a bumpy moving Semi Truck.
I wanted to bad to help him feel better. I felt helpless. He's all over the country and I am sitting here growing roots into the floor next to the computer desk. I knew there was a way to help ease his misery all naturally, but how in the world was he supposed to prepare it on the truck? So, I gave myself a mission. A way to help the man I love. I needed to find a grocery store remedy. Something that could be made quick and easily with ingredients available at almost any grocery store. That rules out any essential oils, long boil poultices, and anything that directly involved large amounts of anything. *sigh* Alright, I might be a pretty good kitchen magician when it comes to making up healing tonics, but I am not that good. Not yet. I thought I was going to have time, to learn slowly and gradually, to ease into this healing stuff with out feeling rushed. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Yeah, I forgot this was real life. Sorry.
I went to work using everything I have ever known about medical science, herbal healing, and comfort foods/smells in general. Oh, and Google. I used LOTS of Google. I ended up with a list of ingredients and numerous methods in which to use said ingredients. But it was all 2 here, 3 there. Hubby was not going to make and then take like 20 different things to get all of the benefits. He's not the most patient man. And, he had been sick for days already and this virus sounded like it was trying to settle in his lungs. I didn't have time to pussy foot around. So I sat down and started combining things, taking care to make sure that nothing counter acted anything else. That would all act together in a symbiotic balance of healing and relief. Taking care to know the therapeutic doses, and the lethal ones, and staying with in those parameters. More doesn't always mean better. It may look like a liquid suspension but it's really a microscopic dance on elements and properties moving together to create a ballet of well being. That sounded poignant, right?
Well, my efforts were not in vain! I sent him his recipe and the next day he was up to 80%! *happydance-happydance-happydance* This sounds like it would taste akin to dog poo after Thai left overs, but apparently it's not that bad. Not amazing or even tasty, but not intolerable. Meh, who would've thought. There are a lot of steps and ingredients, but they can all be procured at Wal*Mart (at least that's where Hubbers got them). And it takes overnight to make part of it, but it supposedly works quickly once it's ready.
Shopping List
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Onion
Eucalyptus Leaves (Hispanic food section in the dried bagged herbs)
Garlic clove
Raw ginger
Lemon Juice
Cayenne Pepper
Apple Cider Vinegar
Black tea
Green Tea
Cinnamon
Honey
First.....
Slice the onion and put a layer in the bottom of a small storage container
generously drizzle some honey on top of onion layer
Put down another layer of onion
Then more honey
Continue until there's no more onion
Put lid on container and allow to sit in dark place over night
In the am you will find a lot of thin syrup in the container
Remove onion slices and reserve this liquid
(this liquid can be used alone as a cough syrup)
Second......
Mix syrup above with 1 Tbs cinnamon
1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 tsp cayenne pepper
Stir until well blended
Put into air tight container
Third.....
Make a hot tea using 1 (one) eucalyptus leaf (more could be fatal... use only 1)
minced clove of garlic (just one clove, not the whole bulb)
1 tsp fresh minced ginger
1 bag of black tea
1 bag of green tea
16 oz of boiling water
Let steep 10 minutes and then strain out pieces of ginger and garlic.
Fourth.....
Mix 2 Tbs of the liquid made second with 4 - 6 oz of the hot tea
Drink up to 3 times a day until better
Sweeten with honey as necessary
Also make sure to breathe in the steam vapors from this remedy.... it'll help a LOT!
There you have it, My fairly untested all natural cold remedy. It worked really well for my Hubby, but I'm not making any promises for you. LOL. This in NO WAY constitutes medical advice. This is just one way to help ease the symptoms of a viral respiratory ailment all naturally. Use at your own risk. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way....
It sounds selfish, but I felt so much better when he felt better. Knowing that I could help my husband be comforted, even from so far away, gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling and a serious confidence boost in my home healing skills. :) Sometimes, it's not even the "making it all better" part that makes you feel good, it's the fact that you aren't some helpless ninny sitting on your duff unable to do something for the one you love. Even if you can't solve the problem, you can give support. They may be having a really rough day at school, a parent who is ailing, a broken toy, or a flushed goldfish.... it doesn't matter. It's the same feeling heart broken frustration of not being able to help, to heal. You can't go to school and fix their problems, you can't cure an elderly parent of age, you can't always repair that broken toy, and Lord knows you can't make a zombie goldfish. But you can be there, you can listen, you can hold and cuddle, you can comfort their heart and soul. I do not have the cure for the common cold, but I felt like even though we were literally thousands of miles apart, I helped to ease his discomfort. I could comfort him. In turn, it comforted me. Funny how even the most generous and selfless acts come back to refill our cup too.
This leads me to today's one small step. Learn to comfort your family. Not cure. This is one of the hardest things to learn. Every time someone picks on your child you want to go and punch some kid on the play ground in the face (ok, maybe not that drastic... but there are times!). Every time your spouse's boss is unfair you want to call and tell them what for. Most times, we don't. But we often don't know what to do past that initial reaction. A lot of us end up forcing our loved ones to stop talking about their problems because it makes us uncomfortable to listen to them hurt when we can't repair. It may be easier for us, but it is a huge injustice to the people we love the most. We are causing them more of the pain we are devastated we cannot fix (I personally will deflect. If you are hurting and I can't fix it, I try to make you laugh and talk about something else. Just ignore it...Like the big pink elephant in the room). Even if we did act on those first impulses we could be denying our loved ones a huge learning opportunity. A lesson in compassion (is Hubby's boss a jerk because his wife is leaving him and his kid's on crack?), in conflict resolution and the ability to stand up for one's self (teach your child how to compromise and how to have enough confidence that someone's words aren't important). Most the time, when people come to you with their problems they don't want you to apologize for life's BS and they don't expect you to fix it. They want you to listen, to support them, to be a sounding board for their ideas. Yes, sometimes we need to step in and protect them, but most of the time, we just need to show them how much we care. So today, comfort those around you with your words, your heart, your arms, your patience, and your compassion. Soothe their symptoms as the virus of life runs its course. You be the healing balm that can allow them to heal themselves.
Today, I wish you contemplation. A chance to think deeply can be a rare and beautiful gem.
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