How I am looking forward to being done with this flu and to be able to get out and do a little shopping!
I was stricken back on January 14; and although the fever is negligible enough, the miserable and nearly violent coughing leaves me scant peace ─ I am awake far longer overnight than I am asleep.
Nor am I particularly pleased with the squeaky, hoarse voice I've now got ─ but at least I could live with that until it eventually righted itself, if only the coughing would cease.
I try to keep my hand in where exercise is concerned because I lose physical integrity so dramatically now that I am 69 years old, but I find that I wind (as in being winded) so easily.
I'm certainly not interested in courting a heart attack or stroke from the strain of the physical exertion.
Also, I have to mostly mouth-breath due to restricted nasal passageways, and I know that there are superb benefits to nasal breathing ─ particularly the infusion throughout the body of nitric oxide (NO) that is generated through such breathing.
If this is new to you, the following article ought to help clarify:
LifeSpa.com
I go to bed with two bandannas folded up and laid across my eyes like a blindfold, and which are held in place with an old fleece headband that I circle under my chin and up over the top of my head.
The headband also helps me to keep my mouth closed so that I can do most of my breathing through my nose while I sleep.
It is not ideal, however, for the headband isn't exactly a clamp ─ it has a rather gentle embrace.
Naturally, when deep nasal congestion sets in, breathing exclusively through the nose becomes most problematic, and I have awakened feeling practically asphyxiated due to drastically impaired breathing over an unknown duration.
I have read enough about severe sleep apnea to know that this is a dangerous situation.
One other helpful benefit of that headband worn the way I use it at night or when I nap is that it has reduced the number of times that my slackened jaw has suddenly slammed shut as a result of one of those spasms or jerks when one is shaken conscious after nearly dropping into sleep.
When that happens, it's easy to savagely bite the side of one's tongue, or maybe part of the cheek or even the lip with blood-blistering consequences.
Incidentally, if you care to know, the scientific or medical name for that involuntary full-body spasm is hypnic jerk ─ you've no doubt experienced it when dreaming of tripping on or even unexpectedly stepping off something like a curb. The accident and sudden helpless sensation of falling causes your entire body to jerk, and you break right out of your dream and sleep.
And you can also chomp onto some unfortunate inner part of your mouth.
I would love to try taping my mouth shut as described in that article, but I cannot ─ I have a moustache and a fairly short surrounding beard.
One of the commenters below that article indicated that there are chin straps that folks with a beard could use ─ I am definitely going to check into that.
In another matter, I am fortunate in that I am not prone to cold sores, but lots of people are.
The following article makes a powerful case for the employment of the essential oils derived from Indian sandalwood (Santalum album):
HSIonline.com
I did a fairly quick search for some other articles in support of this method of eradicating cold sores, but mostly I came up with various past studies that seem to have found the oil to be effective.
A study published in 1999 is still unavailable without purchase or a subscription (Antiviral activity of sandalwood oil against Herpes simplex viruses-1 and -2); but a University of Minnesota website had a brief synopsis of the study at the very top of the following webpage (a webpage that actually listed a number of various studies involving essential oils):
- TakingCharge.csh.umn.edu: Anti-microbial Effects
The study tested the antiviral activity of sandalwood oil, the essential oil of Santalum album L against Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and 2 (HSV-2). Results demonstrated dose-dependent effect of sandalwood oil in inhibiting the replication of virus, and more significantly against HSV-1. The results also indicate a possible chemopreventive action of sandalwood oil against carcinogenesis.
This is a .pdf document of a study published in 2007 and titled Susceptibility of Drug-Resistant Clinical Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Strains to Essential Oils of Ginger, Thyme, Hyssop, and Sandalwood.
And yet another study available as a .pdf document that was published in 2003 is titled The Inhibitory Effect of Essential Oils on Herpes Simplex Virus Type-1 Replication In Vitro is available both here and here.
It seems rather clear that the Indian sandalwood oil may do much of what is claimed in that first article, but I didn't exactly peruse those studies.
To be honest, I'm bagged, and would like to lie down for awhile.
However, first I would like to include this collage that Google Photos put together of some photos taken a year ago when my wife and her two sons arranged a small reunion in Bali with five of their Thailand family members.
Though Google indicates that the photos are commemorating January 26, 2018, the truth is that my wife's digital camera never had its date setting changed to match Indonesian time ─ which was probably around 13 hours ahead of us here in Surrey, B.C.
So the photos could well have been taken on January 27, 2018, according to the local Indonesian calendar and clock.
This is the collage:
And now that I have referred to the original photos, I see that not all of them were taken by my wife. The other camera being used was that of my wife's nephew from Thailand ─ he would have had the proper local date on his camera.
So here are those original photos, beginning with the top row.
The first one shows the wife of that same nephew; and since his camera took the photo, I think it's safe to accept that it was taken at 8:51 a.m. on January 26, 2018:
Note that the photo above was probably taken at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport as my wife and five of her family members awaited a flight to Bali, Indonesia. My wife's two sons were flying directly to Bali from Canada and never set foot into Thailand.
The second photo in the top row was also taken by my wife's nephew ─ this time it was 2:56 p.m. on January 26, 2018. Could they still have been in Thailand? Maybe. Anyway, the elderly gal is my wife's mother:
This is the mother once again; and since my wife took the photo, it seems to me that the shot was taken on January 27, 2018 after everyone had made it to Bali:
The two photos in the bottom row of the collage are selfies taken by my wife.
I can only guess that the first photo was taken in the evening of January 26, 2018 ─ perhaps at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport. I wasn't there, so I cannot know for certain:
I am supposing that the final photo was taken during the morning of January 27, 2018 ─ obviously in a room of whatever hotel the family were staying in:
And that should do it for today's post.
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