I was sick most of the holiday season. The Grinch lingered through Christmas and New Years in the form of a bad cough that kept me sleepless and hacking in a leather recliner at night. Laying in a bed was not possible. After Christmas Weekend, I saw my doctor and begged for something with codeine. I said I wanted the orange-colored citrus-flavored stuff you gave me last time. Yes, he said, that was good stuff. My kids loved it. But the FDA suddenly realized they hadn't approved it and took it off the market. You can still get a version of it, but it's $80 a bottle. I'll give you a prescription for something that's cheaper and almost as good. And it was. And I could sleep at night. He prescribed Amoxicillin too. Just in case, he said. I took it, just in case, but it gave me a tummy-ache that was almost as bad as the cough.
I claim that a decent cold lasts at least a month no matter how you medicate. I like the aspirin and gargling often with warm salt water route. OTC stuff seems to have too many side-effects for me. I'll use the prescribed cough medicine sparingly. If I hide it from Kathy, it will last me several years.
About the time I got sick,
lo5an sent me this link about a connection between consuming wheat and heart disease. I've had a slight wheat food allergy for years that I've tried to ignore. My usual evening meal (I like to call it supper, dinner is my main meal eaten in the middle of the day.) was a sandwich made using 100 percent wholewheat bread. Lately, I had noticed that my wheat allergy was getting worse; causing more temporary head-stuffyness and sinus drainage. The point of all this, about the time I caught the cold, I quit wheat--went on a gluten-free diet. I think that helped me cope with the cold. I still had the cough, but not the usual stuffy-head, sinus, and lung problems. We'll see.Time for breakfast. I think I'll cook some gluten-free steel-cut oats from Bob's Red Mill.
