For the first five or six years of my life I suffered from a strangely repetitive illness. Twice a year my breathing apparatus tightened up, my temperature soared, my sleep was dominated by jagged abstract patterns of colour and waves of screaming sound. These attacks lasted five days. I was told it was bronchitis; VR, who is a state-registered nurse, says asthma seems more likely.
Medical officers used to visit primary schools and examine the kids, mother in attendance. One listened carefully to my symptoms and prescribed cod liver oil. This was long before capsules. I had to take it in teaspoonfuls and it was the horridest taste I have ever experienced (I still shudder at the memory, seventy-five years ago). The bronchitis/asthma immediately disappeared and no one ever believes this story. But why should I lie?
The illness had an always-repeated pattern. Tiny hints of that pattern - but without the terrible physical symptoms - echo faintly as I try to follow the aftermath of the US presidential elections.
Bet you don't believe that, either. I'm not sure I do.
Maybe cod liver oil could sort out the US presidential election anxiety.
ReplyDeleteTom: Except for one person whom I will not name.
DeleteI wonder if this is stress/anxiety related, or at least triggered. The patterns of color and screaming sound are wild. I googled "the benefits of cod liver oil" and got this: 9 Science-Backed Benefits of Cod Liver Oil
ReplyDeleteHigh in Vitamins A and D. ...
May Reduce Inflammation. ...
May Improve Bone Health. ...
May Reduce Joint Pain and Improve Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms. ...
May Support Eye Health. ...
May Reduce Heart Disease Risk. ...
May Improve Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression. ...
May Help Heal Stomach and Gut Ulcers.
Colette: Which means, I suppose, that anyone who doesn't take it is committing slow suicide.
ReplyDeleteDid I - aged six - suffer stress/anxiety? Well there was this guy with a small moustache who wasn't doing anything for my peace of mind.
That's what I thought. Evil men who terrify children with their acts of evil. My little grandson is terrified Trump is going to take him away from his parents and put him in a cage.
DeleteSounds a bit like the symptoms of migraine, from which I had suffered all my life, about once per month in the last few years.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since my heart attack and the stent fitted I have not had an attack now for 5 months. I wonder if the blood thinning drugs I now have to take are anything to do with it?
Avus: I appreciate your comments. But my sense now, after these many years, is that the root of these attacks was pulmonary. From the little I know about migraine I believe that headaches dominate; I don't recall any sort of pain although - again - it was a long, long time ago. Anyway the terrible symptoms of those attacks disappeared while I was still in primary school and - cross fingers - have never returned. My aim in alluding to this was to try and suggest, perhaps comically, how the detached feelings of delirium were being reproduced in me as I tried to follow the ins and outs of the US election endgame.
DeleteMy brother and I grew up on a teaspoon of cod-liver oil each day and didn't mind it at all because it was immediately followed by a teaspoon of delicious virol, a malt extract product. Our boxer dog waited eagerly in line and was also given a teaspoon of oil. My brother still takes his cod-liver oil neat.
ReplyDeleteGarden: Inexplicable. But then half the USA likes DT and the other doesn't.
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