Home Remedies

I am such an unlikely nurse. I haven’t had a checkup in 8-10 years. That’s not counting the cursory exam I had to get into nursing school – you know the type - like a sports or camp physical for a school kid. So I have had this horrible sore throat since Thursday and yesterday (Saturday) I drug myself out of the house at 5:15 PM and went to the walk-in clinic that closes at 6 PM. I wanted to rule out strep. Well they did the strep test and it was negative, but they gave me a prescription for an antibiotic anyhow. And a steroid and a nasal spray for my nonexistent allergies. So I went home with these three prescriptions, determined not to take them, and looked up home Remedies on the internet. Last night, every time I woke up, which was often, I gargled with water infused with cayenne pepper. This morning I read a little farther down the page and have been making this concoction of water, lemon juice, honey and cayenne and slowly sipping it. I have done this five times. My throat feels a little better but it still looks just as red and raw. We’ll see how I feel in the morning. I don't want to take an antibiotic if it’s really a viral infection. On the plus side, I have lost a few - that is three - pounds.

The Dream

This is the story of how Sarah got her name. It requires a little background information.

I met Bill in the summer of 1974 in the Dallas First Ward building on Turtle Creek. I was working in Dallas for the summer and when I went back to Massachusetts in the fall, we maintained a long distance relationship. I made the trip to Dallas once or twice a month since I had airline benefits through my job with Delta. In the Spring of 1975, Bill came to visit me in New England. We took a trip into Maine to visit some of my relatives and to do some genealogical research on one of Bill’s family lines. In Augusta we had no luck. They wanted to charge us for each name search and would not allow us direct access to the records. So we proceeded to the small town of Garland, Maine where the Haskells had lived in the mid 1800’s. There we found Bill’s 4th great grandparents’ graves and made gravestone rubbings of them. Their names were John and Sarah Haskell. After the cemetery experience, we asked a passer-by where we could find the old town records and were directed to the home of the town clerk. She invited us into her kitchen and cleared the table. Then she pulled the old handwritten records from a high shelf in a closet and spread them out for us to search. We found quite a lot of information, had a nice visit with the clerk and got to play with the kittens that were scampering around the kitchen. All in all a most satisfying family history trip!

Fast forward to May of 1979. Bill and I were married in July of 1978 and Sarah was due on May 6th. We had placed the gravestone rubbings on the wall of our bedroom, just across from our bed. We didn’t know whether we were having a boy or a girl, so we had made a list of 6 girl’s names and 4 boy’s names. One of the girl’s names was Elizabeth Sarah. One morning, a few days before our baby was born, Bill told me about a very vivid dream he had had. In it we were in the delivery room and the baby had just been born. It was a girl! The doctor turned to Bill and asked what her name would be. At that point in his dream, he opened his eyes and saw the gravestone rubbing of Sarah Haskell, closed his eyes and told the doctor, her name is Sarah. So when she was born a few days later, we named our baby girl Sarah Elizabeth. So essentially Sarah is named after her 5th great grandmother, Sarah Haskell!

Notes From The Front Line

Monday was an exciting day at the high school clinic. In the morning, before classes started, C and I were called to the cafeteria. A worker had gone into premature labor (NOT Braxton Hicks!) and we ended up calling 911 for her. A 16 year old had a miscarriage in progress and was with us in the clinic all day. We did not have any emergency contacts for her that we could reach and she wasn't bad enough for 911. It’s a good thing C is a former labor and delivery nurse! The girl wanted to go back to class, but C was afraid she would faint and fall down the stairs or something. So she hung out with us. She didn't even have any homework to do or books to read. I think I may take some books to the clinic for cases like this. After all, we are supposed to be supporting the academic environment. Then at the end of the day we got a call from a teacher out in a portable. A student was asleep and she couldn't wake him up. C's first question was is he warm or cold? The teacher didn't know - she was afraid to touch him! By the time we got back there he was awake and able to walk to the clinic under his own power. (We had taken our wheelchair with us just in case) We did a neuro assessment and sent him on his way, but by that time of course, he had missed the bus. Two weeks ago five band kids were discovered in possession of "Cheese" on the band bus,,, so all the teachers are paranoid now of kids in their classes showing signs of use or even putting their heads on their desks. If they can't see their noses they might be snorting. It's sad. So it was an exciting day in the clinic. And that stuff was in addition to all the usual Monday traffic!

Accountability

If you were to look at my facebook account right now, this is what you would see at the top:

Mary Arnquist
is now going to 1) clean the cat box, 2) wash hands, 3) wash dishes, 4) clean kitchen, 5) sweep and vacuum the floor....."I go, I go, look how I go!!"
Updated 22 hours ago

So what did I actually do?? I cleaned the cat box, I washed my hands, I started to boil water for rice, I washed the dishes, dried them and put them away, I finished the rice and put it in the fridge for dinner today, I decluttered and cleaned my kitchen counters and I swept the floor. Everything that was on my list and more ... except the vacuuming. I happen to be allergic to my vacuum - sort of like how I'm allergic to the post office.

I think I was motivated because I was afraid that someone in my virtually nonexistent blogger/facebook audience would call me to task, since I put it up for all the world to see. Do you think this approach will work on my extra 20 pounds? I'll save that experiment for another day.

On another note, Melissa belongs to a Facebook group called "Why Yes, I Do Frequently Burst Out in Song". It has over 200,000 members - how cool is that!? I'm thinking I should start a copycat group called "Why Yes, I Do Frequently Quote Shakespeare Out of the Blue." I don't think it could compete with the singing group, but I have a few lines that I like to insert into conversation now and then. The quote above: "I go, I go, look how I go!" is from Midsummer Night's Dream. I thought it was "see how I go" until I looked it up last night. The problem is that I am not a Shakespearian scholar. I've just seen a lot of free Shakespeare in the Park - so I do not have a large repertoire of quotes. But I do love the plays. I was impressed with a book I recently read – The Eyre Affair. In it, 2 of the characters go to a regular Friday night performance of Richard the Third. Audience members play all the parts and have the whole thing memorized. It was Shakespeare with a cult following, sort of like the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I would love to see a production like that. And I love Richard III. The 1995 movie version, set in a mythical fascist London of the 1930s is great, as is “Looking for Richard” (1996).

20 22 24 26 28 30

20 . Emma
22 . Stephen
24 . James
26 . Melissa
28 . Sarah
30 . Loren

So my sons and daughters are all even ages for the next 3 months with Melissa and Loren kindly filling in the gaps. That is until James turns 25 on December 22nd. James... my odd child born in an even year.

TV or not TV

I am not in the habit of watching TV. I often feel like a popular culture outcast when people talk about their favorite shows. As often as not, I've never even seen whatever it is they are talking about. Or if I have, I probably got bored and went on to something else before it was over. Part of it is that I can't abide watching ads; that's when I bail out. We have never had cable. I decided against it when they first wired our neighborhood for it many years ago, so we are not even set up for it. Sometimes I wish I had it for specific programs, but I would never watch enough to make it worth the fee. So Bill and I watch mostly an occasional program on PBS - like Mystery! or Masterpiece Theater or Dr Who. I like British comedies and detective shows. We check out DVDs from the library and have watched a lot of shows that way. I love the Dallas Public Library! And I've watched a lot of Scrubs because my daughter owns a couple of seasons on DVD. So I can't be a snob and say that I NEVER watch TV, but I can truthfully say that I watch very little and I will not be a good conversationalist if you want to talk about your favorite shows or the fall lineup. Lucky for me, Bill is not a couch potato either.

Today in the Clinic

We had to report on child abuse. We had a crying child stuck with us for more than half the day. There were some live ones in the hair, ruling out the classroom and we could not reach the parents. And oh yes, the whole class had to be screened! One child with a weak bladder came in twice for a change of clothes. Another child has encoporesis (Google that!) and came in for a change of clothes, but we didn't have anything that fit, so that one hung out with us until the dad arrived. Then there were the usual requests for bandaids, the tummy aches and headaches not accompanied by fever, the meds to be given, the record keeping, requests for shot records, enrollments... It was a busy day. [Can you tell that I'm trying to not violate HIPAA by being somewhat obscure?]

Weeks Two and Three

Just for the record, a brief account of my second and third weeks on the job:

Week two was spent following my schedule and meeting the nurses I'll be working with. The teachers were all at school, but no kids. On Monday I was at the high school and we went to teacher meetings all day with the teachers. I began to realize that I need to learn school-speak. Every profession has its own jargon. In spite of putting 4 kids through the Dallas ISD over 21 years, I have never really experienced the "other side". It has been interesting. The high school has a third nurse who runs the TPPP - Teen Pregnancy and Parenting Program. I was amazed to learn that last year there were 140 students in her program and that she expects to add about 40 new pregnancies this year. Wow!! This is in a school with a population of about 1650. So I spend Monday and Tuesday at the HS, Tuesday and Wednesday at Elementary #1 and Friday at Elementary #2. All of my nurses are great and I am running out of steam so I may edit this later.

Pesto

Emma made me do it. She planned this big Sunday dinner for us and got behind, so she asked me to make the pesto. I am not a gourmet cook. I am not a very adventurous cook. I don't even like cooking most of the time. I've never made pesto or even thought about making pesto. But I made the pesto and it was good! Bill bought this mini food processor a few months ago and I never even used it until yesterday. It worked great. I feel inspired to try more new recipes. I just need to find a low fat vegan pesto recipe... is there such a thing? Emma's recipe had 1/2 cup of oil and 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese. I'm such a bad vegan...

UPDATE: Yes there is such a thing. I found a recipe on the McDougall website. Next time, I'll try that one.