I have been down with H1N1 the past several days, and it has been dreadful. I came down with it several days after arriving in the States, and a few days after visiting Doc and Marilyn. Doc, as you'll recall, was sick in bed, attempting to "sweat out" whatever it was that he was ill with. He had all the symptoms of H1N1. Fever, chills, aches, pains, coughing, bad stomach, all of it. He had what I am experiencing now.
Doc had refused my homeopathic immune system boosters, calling them "quack medicine," and that he "weren't no duck," so he "weren't takin' no quack medicine." When I told him that it wasn't medicine, and that it was all natural, he informed me that anthrax was all natural and that he wasn't taking that either.
Last evening, I phoned Doc and Marilyn from my sick bed. Marilyn answered the phone.I found out that Marilyn never came down with H1N1, which their circle of friends refers to as "the pig flu."
She says that the Lord kept her from getting the pig flu because Jesus knew that Doc needed her to cook for him and to help him get well. Doc got over the pig flu in three or four days and was back working on cars and singing and writing new songs already.
I asked h
er what did she fix for him that made him well so quickly? "Well, mostly I'd cook him beef broth, made from cookin' beef bones in water and garlic an' onions, with some black pepper in it. You cook 'em for about four hours an' then let it soak. I'd give him a cup in the mornin' an' one at lunchtime an' one at supper time an' one about 10 at night."
"I also got lemon juice up at the Safeway's over to Bryans Road, an' put that in hot water with some honey in it an' cinnamon an' nutmeg. I gave him about five cups a day in his drinkin' jar. You gotta flush out that flu so it don't stay in his liver an' such."
I asked Marilyn where she learned to do that. "It's just what people know what lives out in the country an' gots to be their own doctor. We're about almost a hour from a doctor an' we ain't got no 'surance or nothin' so we got to come up with what we know. Some of it is just somethin' everyone out here knows, an' other of it is just what comes up in your spirit to do.
"Like, anything what kind of goes up your nose when you smell it will make you feel better - like cinnamon an' nutmeg. Ginger is good for you. Peppermints. We grow them in our yard. You can smell it. So is rosemary. An' peppers, an' onions an' garlic. Dark coloured fruits an' berries is good, too. Like blueberries an' poke berries. It's just somethin' that you know. You put it in hot water an' drink a lot of it.
"Red clover blossoms is good for you an' my grand mama said it would get rid of cancer. I ain't never tried it but she said it does. She would make tea from it an' drink it 4 times a day an' lived like 15 years after the doctor said she had stomach cancer. It ain't what killed her, Tondy. It was a heart attack."
I don't know how these people come up with their concoctions, but I do know that they seem to bounce back to health more quickly than those of us that go to the doctor seem to. On the other hand, maybe it is the high amounts of horrid liquids and sweating that actually get the flu to want to leave the body as quickly as possible so it can go infect someone else! I don't know. All I know is that I need to end this and run to the 'loo - right now!
