Thursday, May 15, 2014

More Like Three Months in Beijing

    No, there is certainly no way an exhausted health caregiver extraordinaire named Marianne Tremblay is being summoned to provide information to the health care industry that it already knows is there. That would be like an elementary school teacher doing his pupils' homework for them. I do need to say that my rowing programme is is yet to fall in place, partially because of the chemical drugs that were still in my body as a result of the treatment, and otherwise my exercise schedule has been much more challenging than I first believed it would be. Diet has also been a huge problem. The chemical drugs were as much a mask as a solution, if not more so.
    Nonetheless, for weeks now the herbal medicines have been doing their work. As from the beginning, I enertain the household first thing in the morning with lining up two little piles of finely ground bayberry bark on a teaspoon, in order to in-hale them, like cocaine, through a very short straw. Once in my nasal membranes they cause an awful bout of sneezing and snotting the mucus up out of my lungs. I love being able to participate in the process. Awfully good for morale. Shawn has a trick for washing out the oversized handkerchiefs.
    Then breakfast, which for weeks has been a full cup of porridge, half bran, half five other grains or so. One of the greatest tastes I know. And quite a few weeks the only one I was interested in. Milk usually warmed, and a bowl of fruit.
     Getting the chemical drugs out of my system it seemed to me took a starvation diet, so for some weeks there was no normal appetite. This situation is improving, along with hints of more appetite and capacity for exercise. I sure need it. My upper arms are mere sticks, and yesterday morning my wife sent on a walking tour of the yard by informing me that my butt muscles had disappeared!