When sickness visits, I now raise the white flag

I've been stupid for 50 years. When I got a serious sickness such as the flu, I would continue to go on runs, work out with weights, do chores, handle business, play with my daughter, etc.

Yeah, I know!

And then I would be sick for a week or two, instead of two or three days, like most people -- which confounded me, since I was in such good physical shape.

Not anymore. I officially surrender. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to bed I go. Time to purge this irrationality from my life.

I got the flu officially Thursday night and woke up yesterday morning after a green-and-yellow poltergeist had invaded my body during the night and slammed my muscles to the mat for the count. I hacked and sneezed my way through a couple of absolutely necessary phone calls and emails for my business before lunch.

Then, I trudged off to bed -- with a full glass of water, Tylenol antihistamines, cough medicine, a nutritional drink and the entire third season of Veronica Mars on my portable DVD player. Every hour or two, I got up and cleaned my sinuses with warm salt water, and I refilled my water glass. I moaned, chilled, sweat, hacked and sneezed all day. Not a pretty site, that! Not fit for public viewing.

I told myself that I must surrender a day or more of my life, in order to not have to surrender more days, as I've done in the past. It wasn't easy, but I kept my chilly, sweaty ass in bed. I let my body have the full, unabridged rest it has always demanded on such occasions.

I felt like a couch potato, as if time had stood still, as if the whole world were doing something, and I was not.

Around midnight, I suddenly felt a break in the throbbing head, less drainage from the Poltergeist, less rapid beating of the heart. Dry hacking turned to productive hacking -- always a good sign. (TMI?)

This morning I woke up feeling nearly human. I have to remind myself that I must carry through on my promise to take it easy for one more day and not give in to the desire to jog in the beautiful sunshine, which tempts me as I write this.

One more day, and then I can perhaps take down the white flag and get my life back.

Until we meet again, Sickness.

Raw deal on raw milk

A very long article in the Health & Wellness section of today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal did what you might expect on the issue of raw milk: a hatchet job.

The story is HERE, but you may be able to read it only if you are a WSJ subscriber. I’m not sure.

As some of you probably know, there have been some sicknesses recently that have been allegedly linked to raw (unpasteurized) milk. My family has been drinking this amazing stuff for years and never had a problem, and we have not heard of anyone else having a problem with it. The article also rounds up the usual suspects (ahem, “experts”) who say that raw milk doesn’t necessarily have any benefit nutritionally over dead (pasteurized) milk – although these same “experts” later say that you can get some probiotics from yogurt and kefir that are found in raw milk but not dead milk. Go figure.

As many of you know, raw milk (fresh from the cow) has not been heated to the surface temperature of the sun (pasteurized), so it still has its natural enzymes and vitamins, which help with digestion and nutrition. But this is what a guy named John Sheehan, the director of the FDA’s division of plant- and dairy-food safety, had to say about it: “Raw milk is inherently dangerous and should not be consumed by anyone at any time, for any reason.” You gotta wonder what a farm dad or mom in 19th century America would’ve said to Mr. Sheehan had Mr. Sheehan walked into their barn and shouted that lovely piece of ignorance. I can only hope that pitchforks would be included in the parents’ reply.

With the latest media frenzy (don’t these ignorant people have anything better to do?), the fascist authorities of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration are pushing states to more highly regulate or ban raw milk. Georgia and Wisconsin are actually two states that have bills pending right now to legalize the sale of raw milk, but this latest crap from the media and the fascists may hinder that. We’ll see if the authorities and media can somehow not treat adults like 2-year-olds on this subject, like most others. Doubtful.

Whole Foods recently took all of its raw milk off of its shelves because it feared lawsuits from customers who drank raw milk and then claimed sicknesses from it.

Damned shame.