Aunty and Kay at the tail end of the cold. Notice Aunty wearing a scarf to protect the back of her neck?
It has been years, maybe even decades, since Aunty got sick. This week, Aunty got sick and felt like she was a 100 year old near dead dog.
However, there are actually some good things about getting sick. One of them is having empathy (the ability to feel what others feel) when other people are sick. It feels like the pits. Sore throat, sore body, weak, depressed, listless, headachey, junk.
Another is being able to try what Aunty preaches to her kids when they get sick. These are:
- Stay at home! Not just to get better, but also to contain your germs and not spread them.
- Don’t eat solids and/or greasy foods. Soups are best. The best of the best is the Hot and Sour soup from Hale Vietnam for fevers/flu in the first day. If done early enough, the fever and flu like symptoms are GONE.
- Rub Vicks Vaporub on your chest at night.
- Spray Air Detox (from Herbdoc.com) on paper towels and use to wipe your hands before and after touching “community” items such as door knobs, keys, etc. Keep your germs, especially from your hands, to yourself.
- Use a cotton neck wrap, like a big handkerchief around your neck, especially keeping the back of your neck protected. Spray it with Air Detox throughout the day.
- Drink hot liquids, NO sugar-y or artificial drinks. Aunty started putting kalamunggay leaves in a teapot and adding hot water as her basic daily drink.
- Eat ginger – that’s what friend Rayna said to do. It is actually good advice – the li hing dried ginger that isn’t too tough.
- Starve a fever, feed a cold? Not sure about that but one concoction that Aunty believes in is maple syrup (or honey), lemon juice (fresh squeezed), and cayenne powder in hot water. This is a delicious hot drink that has everything in it to get through the hard times in place of eating. [note: Herbdoc.com has a Cold and Flu Shot in a shot glass type bottle but Aunty is allergic to alcohol and hasn’t tried it.]
- Keep your body, especially your neck and feet warm, but not hot. Aunty’s magic socks are wonderful and comfortable for her feet, and anything will do as a neck wrap to protect the back of our necks from drafts and losing warmth.
- Eliminate the toxins. In other words, poop. Aunty’s daily regimen includes Intestinal Formula #1, so regularity is her norm. If you aren’t pooping, you aren’t getting rid of the bad stuff in your body, and you will remain sick longer. Here’s a story that will embarrass one of our daughters, so she will be called Bozu, for anonymity. Bozu got sick and didn’t take care of herself – went out, took meds, got sicker and sicker with a constant fever. Ah! You might think that she needed antibiotics, right? Except her mother doesn’t believe in those because of how it blasts everything, even our immune systems. Meanwhile, she felt lousier and lousier. She kept refusing Aunty’s advice about having an enema even though she was running a fever, hardly pooping and not eating much. Finally, after several days of feeling really sick and missing school, she agreed to an enema. Longs Drugs sells pre-bottled saline water enemas, easy to use by inserting and squeezing. Aunty warmed a bottle up by standing it in hottish/warm water and let Bozu have it.
The trick to enemas is to hold the liquid in for as long as possible, but keep close to the toilet. After a few minutes, Bozu WENT. It was not pretty, but it was super effective. It was as if a toxic dump was cleared out of her. The entire house reeked of a smell that was like over ripe raw daikon (Japanese turnip) for what seemed like days.
She was quite weak after and went to sleep under covers. We did not see her for the rest of the day and night, and when we did, her fever was gone and she felt better. Still weak, but no more fever, and able to eat some chazuke rice (white rice with tea) and ume (picked fermented plum). She was herself in a few more days and mother prided herself on the merits of the glorified enema.
- Stay out of air conditioning, if possible. Fresh air is best, sea air on a sunny non windy day is even better.
- Rest and take it easy. Watch tv, movies, Korean dramas. Just don’t do much. Your body’s immune system is working overtime to get you well and it doesn’t need additional stress or demands added to its workload. Be a couch potato. Take naps. This time around, Aunty didn’t follow this piece of advice and after feeling a bit better, decided to trim a few trees branches, uproot a couple of papayas and start a patch of kalamunggay trees. This was followed by weeding an irritating spot in the yard. Although it felt good to be doing such useful yardwork at the time, Aunty had a slight relapse later that evening.
- One of the worst symptoms of a cold is not being able to breathe easily. Use a neti pot with warm water and Himalayan sea salt or colloidal silver to flush each nostril gently.
- Give yourself time to heal. Our bodies are truly miracles that can heal itself. Some people count on their doctors and modern medicine to fix them. If that is what you believe, then go for it.
- When you feel that it is the worst that it can be, it probably is. Little by little, you will get better.
Now that Aunty is just about over this dang irritating cold, life is good again. Aunty met with fellow blogger Kay of Musings over at travelerswife.blogspot.com for lunch at To Thai For in Kaimuki. Aunty loves their delicious greasy tasty Thai pork chops but settled for Chicken pad thai instead (avoid greasy foods when sick).
Aunty also wore a scarf around her neck and dressed warmly with long pants (Aunty usually wears a skirt) and magic socks.
It was delightful to finally meet Kay and her cute husband Art in person. Almost like being rewarded for getting over the dang cold that gave Aunty a lesson in life. It forced Aunty to try a neti pot, thus discovering the benefits of it! Next time it will be one of the first things done, with salted water and a few drops of wild oregano oil. It really clears the nasal passages and hastens the healing.
Our bodies CAN heal itself, which is a wondrous and invisible blessing that we don’t always realize until we get sick or hurt. Take care of it, thank it, and please, be well.
Aunty first heard about this 4-7-8 breathing exercise from Kay of Musings. This supposedly helps you fall asleep, and so Aunty, on the few occasions when it was hard to fall asleep at night, would breathe in, hold, and exhale continuously, and find herself becoming light headed – but still wide awake.
One of the better health newsletters that Aunty subscribes to is 
Lani Kwon
Nick Polizzi is the Director at 
When Aunty was young, which seems eons ago, hardly anyone had cancer. Now, it seems commonplace, heart breakingly commonplace, and too often – harsh and fatal. We live in a different time, with different environmental factors as well as different lifestyles, and we need to take charge of our choices before it is too late.
Aunty is the type of person that holds everything in. It was how I was raised, and it has served me well thus far. Maintaining pride, avoiding shame, putting on a smiling face that says that everything is alright. Very Japanese. My ancestors would be proud of me.
This was originally written 2 years ago and not posted until today, in concurrence with Aunty’s 