When i came down with the upper respiratory infection i tried to ride it out with fluids and rest. It was the addition of the pink eye that forced me to the urgent care clinic. When you haven’t met your deductible the medical bills can add up. Because of how often someone working in healthcare can expect to be sick, i tried not to go unless i absolutely had to. Well, with pink eye on a saturday i had to. While i was there i mentioned the 5 day fever i just couldn’t kick. The doctor told me she’d already seen dozens of other healthcare workers come down with the same thing and none of them could kick it without antibiotics. So i sprung for the antibiotics and took them home. I read the directions on the bottle and took one pill with a small amount of food. Then i laid down for a bit. That was the wrong thing to do. I’ll spare you the specifics of what happened next. Let’s just say i would have needed 2 packs of adult diapers a day and reconstructive surgery on my butthole if i had wanted to continue taking the antibiotics and going to work. I mean, i can understand a few mild side effects but this was as if i had swallowed a thousand laxatives at once. After i had survived the experience i sat down to rest and think about what i was going to do. I knew better than to take another one of those pills. I wasn’t sure there would be anything left of the house if i were to go for round two. I had to return to work. I couldn’t get better without an antibiotic. Suddenly it became clear. I had a natural medicine cabinet in the shed. I had created it years ago, with only the finest quality herbs, leaves, and roots, more as a tribute to my mother and the way she had raised us than a practical thing to use on a regular basis. She had raised us with a book called “prescription for natural healing”. I had grown up with a vast knowledge of herbal remedies. Actually, most conventional medicines are derived from plants. They aren’t magically poofed into existence. They do come from somewhere. When i created the cabinet i never imagined how often i would come to value it in a place where stores were far away, infrequently open, and carried few items i required. But now i really needed the contents of the natural medicine cabinet as i had never needed them before.
I pulled out my own copy of “prescription for natural healing” and thumbed through the pages, making a list of herbs and roots with antibacterial properties. I was going to make my own antibiotic; a tea; one that wouldn’t have the explosive effects of a thousand laxatives swallowed at once. I made myself a list. Then i opened the drawer and the cabinets and pulled out the corresponding jars. I carried them in my shirt to the kitchen where i brought a pot of water to boil. I placed all of the ingredients with antibacterial properties into my pot and boiled the water until the kitchen smelled absolutely dreadful. Then i let the tea sit and rest for a bit. When the water had stopped bubbling i strained the tea into a cup. It was awful tasting and awful smelling, as most medicinal things are. Truthfully, i had no idea if it would work. It was an experiment. I had to try something and it certainly was not going to be another one of those pills that had rendered me beyond incontinent. I decided i would treat it like a conventional antibiotic. I would take it morning and night for 10 days in a consistent dose. If i began getting better i’d know it worked. If i still had a fever i’d know it didn’t and i’d crawl back to urgent care seeking another visit with alternative solutions to the terrifying blue capsule. Within 48 hours my fever was completely gone and my symptoms were dissipating. The doctor at the urgent care clinic told me she had seen patients that still had a fever two weeks after the onset of symptoms because they hadn’t come in for the antibiotic. I had to know for sure. I stopped drinking the tea. My fever returned. I went back to drinking the tea and continued with a consistent pattern of consumption for 10 days. The upper respiratory infection was gone. I sat back and marveled at my discovery. One could make antibiotics in the kitchen. They tasted awful and smelled worse but, it worked. I filed the recipe away in the shed. Armed with this new found skill i was never going to urgent care for antibiotics again. Weighing the options, which would you choose, a disgusting taste and a yellow tongue or a geyser of poop? It seemed like a clear enough choice to me at the time.