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.

Decades ago, Aunty took tap dance lessons from Jack Cione with pal Cookie and Gayln.  It was fun making feet noise in time with other feet in the room, but it wasn’t a life passion for any of us.

During a tidying session (still to come: Aunty’s review of Marie Kondo’s Life Changing Magic of Tidying), Aunty found 2 thick print outs of Jack Cione’s dance steps and songs.  These did bring a sense of joy because of the memories – though not sure whether to toss or keep, yet.

Then, serendipitously (fortunate chance), an email link about tapping for health came into Aunty’s email box this morning.  It was like a sign to pay attention, doodoodoodoo doodoodoo (theme from Twilight Zone).

Tapping is part of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) that Aunty had heard about and was curious as to its success and results.  Instead of tapping with clinking shoes, one taps gently on specific points on the body with fingertips.  It seemed like a God/Universe given gift, so Aunty opened up the link and tried it.

Just like Mikey in the Life Cereal commercial (if you are old enough to remember), Aunty liked it!  Ups to you if you want to try it – this first link explains the different point to tap: http://thetappingsolution.com/2016tws/how-to-tap-video.html

And this one will guide you through a 20 minute exercise to tap away stress/fears and begin a great day: http://www.thetappingsolution.com/2016event/R00Ms/D1-MR-3654.php  [Update: this was only available for 24 hours – so solly.  The Tapping World Summit event is going on for the next 10 (and counting down) days and events can be listened to for free during a 24 hour period, daily.  So, once one presentation is up, it then goes away and the next day’s event is up, then away – UNLESS one buys the packages.  Aunty is not planning to buy the packages but perhaps will continue tapping and adjusting the affirmations/confirmations/etc. specific to her own situations.]

[Further update:  Although the packages are available for purchase for those who want permanent access to the Tapping World Summit 2016, Aunty feels that these are good folks because of the limited sharing of some rather excellent material – limited because of the 24 hour FREE online access for each day’s events.  Here is a list of the upcoming topics and speakers: http://thetappingsolution.com/2016tws/schedule.html which included Jack Canfield (pau already, solly), but some rather excellent subjects such as healing relationships with mother on March 1, Tapping for self confidence on February 29, Personal peace procedure on March 3, etc.  Aunty plans to “attend” some of those freebies and has to write the days down on her calendar in order not to miss them. Here is the link to access each live daily (available for 24 hours) event: http://www.thetappingsolution.com/2016event/live.php – hope this helps everyone!]

It is quite pleasant, something that is free to do, and in line with socks being magic in Aunty’s quest for excellent health and well being.  There are other links to different tapping modes but for now Aunty felt very good about this starter tapping exercise and is now motivated to gather all the books in the house in one big pile and sort with Marie Kondo’s criteria of joy.  Aunty’s fear of having a clutter-free house is soon to be conquered.

Happy feet, tapping fingers, clean house.  Sounds quite wonderful, doesn’t it?