You don't know what you got till it's gone

I remember New York amazed me in so many ways when I first moved there. I found it hard to believe that one could not buy codeine without a prescription when here in Barbados its OTC. Of course in NY they don't have flowers of sulpher and tallow candles on their pharmacy shelves either. Mix flowers of sulpher with ponds cold cream and use on tinea versicolor; tallow, you heat and pour over splinters or sea egg spines to help draw them out, although one can use vinegar on sea egg spines, it will dissolve them eventually. I had to take some esoteric ergot for my migraines where codeine swallowed at the onset of the aura stopped them in their tracks. Acupuncture works even better.

I also sought in vain for Friar's Balsam in NY. A dark aromatic liquid that you pour into boiling water, turning it milky like a fine latte, although no latte ever smelled like that, next you hood a towel over your head and the steaming bowl and inhale deeply. I used to ponder the possibility of actually cooking my lungs in my efforts to clear them and one side effect is the inadvertent facial you give yourself in the process. Then there is the aftermath: the actual purpose of the performance to clear the lungs of congestion. And let's just say it works. Really well.

This morning my breath will not carry sound above a croak from my larynx at all, a minor disaster for one whose job involves the audible spoken word. My lungs wheeze and moan like bellows with a puncture and there is pain and weight that sits on my upper chest, an evil toad with heavy clawing feet. I avoid allopathic treatments as much as possible; after all I am as biotic as the germs that plague me from time to time so anti them is anti me as well, not a reassuring picture. So I will bathe my lungs in near scalding vapours, open nasal passages with salt water, boost my immune system with garlic and cough and spit my way to renewed vigour and health.It will be an interesting morning.