News Brief 5 - Mon Jan 15, 2007 = Fighting a Cold

Mon Jan 15, 2007

Dear Everyone:

I have been fighting a cold for the past week. Today is my second (and last) sick day from work because of it. Except for a cold I caught in South Carolina in 2002, I hadn't had a cold for years and years, until last winter year here in the UAE. It was a doozy! So when this one started creeping up on me, I fought back!

On Thursday, I had arranged to take most of the day off work using comp time to go to Dubai with my friend Bonnie. We visited Zayed University 's new campus outside Dubai - it has to be seen to be believed! - and then headed for the Dragon Mart before ending up at Global Village to enjoy the Dubai Shopping Festival. The Dragon Mart is a large Chinese shopping mall built in the shape of a long, sinuous dragon. Inside each section are rows of small shops selling a wide variety of goods from China . Side by side you can find a toy store, a car parts shop, a pearl outlet, an exercise equipment dealer, etc.

As I coughed my way around the Mart, Bonnie encouraged me to get some Chinese cough medicine. "I've never had bad luck with Chinese medicine," she proclaimed. She ought to know; she's worked in China twice, the first time in the 1980's, one of the first Americans to work behind the Bamboo Curtain, and she had her two-year-old daughter with her at the time!

So we went into a medicine shop and were gawking at products with labels written in Chinese. Finally I asked a shop employee what he had for coughs and he went directly to a shelf near the back and plucked up a red box. I found myself looking at Nin Jiom (brand) Pei Pa Koa. One panel of the box was written in English. The ingredients include: Tendrileaf Fritilary Bulb, Loqat Leaf, Fourleaf ladybell Root, Indian Bread, Pummelo Peel, Platycodon root, Prepared Pinellia Tuber, Chinese Magnoliavine Fruit, Snakegourd Seed, Common Coltsfoot Flower, Thinleaf Milkwort root, Bitter Apricot Seed, Fresh ginger, Liquroice root, Almond Extract, Menthol, Honey, Maltose, Syrup. That's when Bonnie proclaimed that she had never had bad luck with Chinese medicine. So I sprung for the 27 Dhs it cost and took it with me.

Later, back at the ranch, my flat that is, I took my first 1-tablespoon dose of Pei Pa Koa before hitting the sack at 1 AM. It should be taken 1 tablespoon three times a day. I took it, according to directions, it a total of 5 more times, by which time the cough was gone and the chest congestion had vanished!

Meanwhile, before the cough had gone and I was miserable with other symptoms, I was huddled in bed under numerous covers trying to get warm, especially on the back of my neck and on my throat where I was convinced I needed something hot, but the hot water bottle was just too big and altogether the wrong shape for the job. Then I remembered the Rice Sockies that my daughter's children have.

Rice Sockies are homemade. My grandchildren’s are made from their Daddy's old (and laundered!) mid-calf length socks, all soft and stretchy from wear, about 1/2 to 2/3-filled with uncooked rice and tied in a knot at the open end to keep the rice inside. Place one of these in the microwave oven for 1-3 minutes, depending on the age of the intended user, and the result is a nice, warm-to-hot comforting thing to place almost anywhere an ailing body needs it. My grandchildren especially like to use theirs on tummies to ease tummy aches.

Well, there I was, thinking longingly of Rice Sockies when it filtered through my cold-befogged mind that I had a bag of rice in my kitchen cupboard and a pair of lightweight, stretchy sockies (complements of Lufthansa Airlines) in my dresser drawer. I wobbled to the dresser, extracted the socks and then made my way to the kitchen, where I used a small drinking glass to transfer the rice into the socks. After I'd tied the open ends, each sockie went into the mic for 3 minutes - we're talking major heat need here! Then, back to the bed, and under the covers with one rice sockie behind my neck and the other across my throat. Nirvana!

To soothe my sore throat and generally attack the cold, I ate lemons and drank a hot drink made solely from salted cut lemons heated in water - and ate soda crackers to keep the citric acid from eating my stomach lining! Usually if I feel a cold coming on, just eating a couple of lemons does it. This time, I had to branch out to cough syrup and rice sockies!

I was soon over the chills and aching throat, and when the cough syrup knocked out the coughing, I was well on the way to mending.

Total cost out of pocket: 27 Dh ($7.34) for cough syrup and 2.5 Dh (70-cents) for lemons. And I still have half a bottle of Pei Pa Koa left! Next winter, a cold won’t have a chance!

I hope you are healthier this winter than I have been. I'm well now, though, and will head back to work tomorrow.

In case you're interested, you can go online to www.ninjiom.com and read up on Pei Pa Koa and the company that makes it.

Good health to all!

Pat