SPITING MY FACE
SEATTLE, Washington – My new health care team spent an hour jamming broken instruments in my ear. "Yes," the nurse practitioner finally concluded. "You're congested."
"And ... you're about to dispense the wonder drug that cures me immediately?"
"Only the tincture of time will do the trick," she smiled.
"I've tinctured five weeks now. I'm done with the tincturing."
"Try waiting then. For variety."
***
I am desperate to wrap up the P-I scuba story. My lingering cold symptom must exit stage left. Immediately. 
And so I am seduced by the neti pot.
"It's a little nose waterfall," a friend explains. "Push the spout up one nostril and let the saltwater dribble out the other."
This experience ranks high on the "Why Not Go to Law School and Get A Real Job?" scale. Right behind eating green ham and slightly ahead of drifts in my décolleté.
But I breathe easy. At last.
Rural GP in Blighty:
ReplyDelete"I could give you a subscription for something nasty, but this is what I would do: Boil a heaped teaspoon of salt in 200 ml of water. Let the mix cool down and then suck it through a straw to fill the straw. Quicky put index finger on top to hold in the liquid, lie down and snort mixture into nostril. Repeat with other nostril......then curse and resist the urge to blow your nose for about 30 seconds."
Sascha
My dad – originally from the American South – had a similar remedy...
ReplyDeleteLook at the long arm of yogic goodness...
Let's keep the Indo-European spirit alive, darling, one irrigation at a time! Ax
Oh yes, my favorite Limey GP moment: "Here's a prescription for rosehips."
ReplyDeleteMe: "I can buy NHS-discounted rosehips?"
Doc: "Oh yes. Should clear the problem right up... It's probably psychosomatic anyway."
So would you say you're convinced? Once I am, it's off to the herbalist for this little bit of grotesquery...
ReplyDeletehttp://theherbalist.com/rhino_horn.html
Only...should something designed to keep my sinuses tidy be called the RHINO HORN?