Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Cold...brrr


“The temperature was below zero when I returned home a few nights ago.  My apartment building was surrounded by emergency vehicles with lights flashing.  The reason, l soon learned, was a broken water pipe.  Three apartments close to mine had been flooded and were uninhabitable.  As I walked down the hall toward my apartment I wondered if mine would be the fourth.  Would I have to move elsewhere to get in out of the cold?  Fortunately, my apartment was warm and dry.  I was indeed grateful.”

“What’s going on, Curmudge?  Is this a personal or educational blog?  In Kaizen Curmudgeon we are supposed to teach something to our readers.”

“This is a historical look-back, Julie.  Most people these days—unless they are homeless—have little appreciation of how bad it is to really feel cold.  Even within my lifetime, cold weather has been a critical factor in history.  Personally, I have been spared.  When my sons were in Boy Scouts they (and some fathers) went  camping in the winter.  If they spent a night in a tent in the snow, they became a member of the Polar Bear Club (Doc Mack did this many times).  Of course, they had the option of moving into a nearby warm cabin.”

“I understand that you Polar Bear’ed once, Old Guy.  You said you used three sleeping bags.”

“In wartime, the warm shelter option often did not exist.  The plight of Washington’s soldiers at Valley Forge has faded into the distant past, but I do know that my great-grandfather froze his feet digging saltpeter (potassium nitrate) to make gunpowder for the Confederate Army in the Civil War.  He and his unmarried daughter (Aunt Molly) subsequently raised my mother after my grandmother’s early death and my grandfather’s remarriage.  Too bad that my mother didn’t tell me more about him.”

“It’s really unfortunate, Curmudge, that we tend not to share enough oral history with our children.”

“In contrast, the winter wars of the 20th Century are imbedded in my memory.  I was too young to participate, but in one case only by a few years.  Here at home we learned of these actions in the nightly radio news, and the details came out later.”

“For us youngsters and non-history buffs, tell us about the events that are frozen in your memory.”

“This is from the history books, not my personal memory.  The Battle of Stalingrad was fought in the winter of 1942-3 by the Germans and Russians with a million men on each side.  This quote from a German soldier’s letter clearly depicts his suffering from the cold: ‘The little finger of my left hand is gone and the three middle fingers of my right one are frozen.’ “

“There were also people whom you knew personally who fought the weather as well as the enemy in that war (WWII).”  

“My cousin’s husband, now deceased, was an officer in the Army and was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944.  It’s hard to imagine choosing between staying above ground in the snow or jumping into a wet foxhole.  I was ten years old then, and I still shiver at the thought.”

“You missed the Korean War by only a few years.  Right, Curmudge?”

“I was 16 in late 1950 when the U.N. forces were retreating from the Chosin Reservoir.  A personal friend, also deceased, was there as a Marine officer.  The Communist Chinese entered the war with about 200,000 men against 20,000 U.N. forces.  The 1st Marine Division lost 12,000 wounded, most of which were frostbite injuries inflicted by the severe cold.”

“Let’s end on a less serious note with a vignette from a much more recent war.“

“When Doc Mack arrived in Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne, his unit was sent to forward operating base Howz-E-Madad.  (To read a personal account of the war in Afghanistan, go to the Curmudgeon’s Wastebasket blog starting at the 8/11/10 posting.)  Mack’s gear was delayed, and he arrived before his sleeping bag.  The nights were chilly, so Mack spent the nights sleeping in a body bag.  He noted with interest that body bags don’t have zippers that will allow them to be opened from the inside.”

“That figures.  So what’s the bottom line of our historic look-back, Curmudge?”

“There are several, Julie.  First, war is horrible, and waging war in the winter can make it intolerable.  Second, we should share our oral histories—most of which are unique—with our children and grandchildren.  And finally, I need to note that I don’t mind the cold, I just hate being cold.  So much so that at the end of my days I want to be like Sam McGee in the Robert W. Service poem…cremated.”

Kaizen Curmudgeon

Link to posting from blog archives: Mistakes—mnemonics, sleep deprivation4/01/10 http://kaizencurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2010/04/mistakes.html

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Cold...sniff and cough


“It’s been awhile since we had a serious conversation, Curmudge.  A month ago you promised to continue our series on brain plasticity.  Then we became distracted by year-end stuff like holiday greetings and 2013 archives.”

“More than just those things, Julie.  My biggest distraction has been my coming down with the mother of all colds.  It’s hard to be creative when you are miserable and have no energy.  One day I went through a box of tissues like a tornado through a pile of dry leaves.”

“Okay Snuffy, based on your recent experience, can you tell me about the alternative medications that should help one prevent or survive a cold?”

“I’ll mention a few that I have read or heard about, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

“That’s obvious.  If everything worked as advertised, you wouldn’t have caught a cold yourself.”

“Actually, the first big obstacle is convincing yourself that you are actually catching a cold.  But just in case you are, gargle with Scotch (salt water is okay).  Then start taking black elderberry extract (Doc Mack suggests Sambucus).  Also echinacea, andrographis, and pelargonium root extract.  Get plenty of rest, drink lots of water, and suck on zinc gluconate lozenges.  If possible, avoid air travel; the pressure changes you feel in your ears can turn a sniffle into a raging head cold.”

“I presume that one doesn’t swallow the Scotch after gargling with it?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“So, Mr. Wizard, what does one do when your defense has failed, your nose begins to drip, and the virus begins to ravage your body?”

“In one word, suffer.  It helps to be young.  College students get frequent colds, but they seem able to maintain their active lifestyle despite the discomfort.  Except voice majors; they can’t afford to catch a cold.”

“You sound as if a cold is devastating to a senior citizen.”

“Excellent word choice, Julie, even though a senior is usually able to get more rest.  So here are a few things that a person—young or old—might try once he has an undeniable cold.  The local drugstore has a whole shelf of things that might mitigate your symptoms, but the cold itself will forge ahead despite your efforts to hide it.  Keep taking the exotic remedies listed above, but I’m uncertain of their effect on a full-blown cold.  Because they are expensive, you might run out of money before you run out of cold.  For chest congestion, try a mustard plaster (I remember it well from my childhood).  An electric heating pad should do the job with less discomfort.  Also try honey, lemon juice and whiskey (your choice) heated up to help your throat and cough.

“I understand that you have a technique to stanch the flow from a persistent runny nose, Curmudge.”

“Dissolve a zinc gluconate tablet in an ounce of water.  Use a cotton swab to apply the solution to the inside of your nostrils.  Then sniff.  This should be effective, but one risks losing his sense of smell.  A nasal spray with the same ingredient was withdrawn from the market.  It’s clearly a drastic measure.”

“I must ask, as usual, ‘What’s the bottom line, Old Guy?’ “

“If, in fact, we catch colds from other people, I recommend living as a solitary monk in a cave on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Aegean Sea.  The alternative is to live as we presently do and gargle with Scotch.”

Kaizen Curmudgeon

Link to posting from blog archives: More About Primary Care in 1940—8/27/09 http://kaizencurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-about-primary-care-in-1940.html