Hello to All:
It has been a quiet week out here. Everyone I talked to is still trying to get over the Christmas and New Years celebrations. Both involved eating and drinking too much. If I can be accused of drinking too much it would be Diet Dr Pepper. I am guilty as charged about the food. However, it will be a long time before I can eat another tamale. If I had only stopped after the first two or three dozen I would have been okay.
There was some sort of bad bug going around, so I was told. Try to stay out of Walmart, Sam’s and the grocery store when that is going around. I always use that sanitary wipe on the handle and my hands to try and limit the chances of getting the bug that way. I really do believe that is the major way of spreading the flu or colds.
Got a letter from my oldest son, Andy, who lives in Pennsylvania. Some where in the South East part of the state is a small place that is not all that far from Valley Forge. He has lived there for years and I don’t think that he has been over there yet. Andy was telling me about waking up one morning about a week before Christmas. Said the left side of his face was paralyzed.
He thought, “I have had a stroke”. Somehow he got to the ER. The doctor on duty was very good and told him “No, it is not a stroke. It is something called
‘Bell’s Palsy’. It is so similar that the ER specialist used him as a teaching example for his staff. “Ok, now try raising your eyebrows. See. If he’d had a stroke, that would still work.” Andy was assured that the long term prognosis was good. It may take a few months so just adapt the best you can. Andy said that he will be drinking his meals through a straw and it is a good thing that he likes protein drinks. This will be a good chance to lose a few pounds.
Wish that my grandmother Thigpen were still alive. She could cure this in a few days with one of her famous “poultice”. Different input for different causes. Like for a wasp sting or poision ivy or snake bite would call for different things. She used boiled turnip greens, cut up purple onion, or sometimes jimson weed. When Ben-gay and Vapo Rub came along they got added into the formula. She would put Ben-gay on a cloth, like an old baby diaper, and heat it by hanging it over the little gas stove in the bathroom.
Then when it got hot, slap in on your chest. If it didn’t burn you to the bone it might help your congested chest. Just by chance, Judy had a case of Bell’s palsy in the last year or so. Her case was not as sever as Andy’s. I did have to go get an eye patch to keep the eye clean. She could not blink enough to keep the eye clean. She was over it in a few weeks. The doctor told Andy that he might need a few months to get over it.
So it goes in our quiet little corner of Coleman County.
Talpa Bob
