Swings and Roundabouts
Extra points if you can see the black cat on the verandah rail
Sunday night I rugged up in coat and scarf and took a glass of red outside to view the International Space Station going overhead before dinner. My neighbour once worked at one of those giant dish telescopes, tracking the ISS, and often lets me know when it is heading over us here in Tasmania. Since there was approximately 90% cloud cover at the time I did not get to wave at the astronauts (by the way, this is something everyone in the world can do for free fun. The ISS circles the Earth every ninety minutes - there is a website and an app which lets you know when it will be zooming over your house during the night hours. It crosses Tasmania several times a month. Possibly. Sometimes I don't really pay attention when people tell me things..).
Still, I was outside, in the dark, with a glass of wine, so I stopped and looked at the twinkling lights across the valley. Then I noticed a blackbird warbling its goodnight song to the neighbourhood. Then I noticed another sound in the background which I didn't recognise at first until suddenly I realised it was a frog. A southern brown tree frog which is a very common local frog - but I have never heard it calling here in suburbia. I was so cheered and charmed to hear its little song. And there I stood, dinner time in suburbia, lighted kitchen windows all around, and I was alone in the dark with twinkly lights, serenaded by a blackbird and a brown tree frog. The cat jumped up on the verandah rail next to me and purred happily in my ear and I asked myself how it is that I am so fortunate to live a life where such moments of small but perfect happiness abound?
I am writing this on Wednesday afternoon from my bed. On Saturday I went walking in the bush at Paul's place in the sprinkling rain, which was a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Some hours later I noticed a slug crawling across my kitchen floor while I was cooking dinner. Then I looked closer and realised it wasn't a slug, but a leech, happily replete from hours of feeding. It was huge! Then I looked for the blood, and found it leaking from my ankle into my sock. Leeches send an anti-coagulant into your blood which makes a leech bite bleed for hours. Still, I've survived plenty of leech bites with effects no worse than a persistent itch as the bite heals. This one, however, turned red, swelled up and made me feel distinctly unwell. My children forced me to the doctor in the morning when I woke up and could hardly walk. Who knew, some leeches have nasty bacteria that they kindly pass on to their hosts? I really don't like taking anibiotics unnecessarily so the GP made a deal with me. She gave me a prescription, and drew around the swelling on my ankle. If the redness went outside the line I had to start taking the antibiotics. If everything started to get better rather than worse I could get away with not taking them. I had to go home and go to bed and put my leg up and read a book. Could I have a prescription for that? I asked. Yes, she said, it's her favourite prescription:)
So here I am, in bed with my leg up, drinking lemon and ginger with rosehip syrup. I'm getting better by the tried and true method of rest combined with granny herbal tonics. I think I will be able to avoid antibiotics. I'm not against them, by the way, as I quite prefer being alive to dying of a really nasty infection, but less is often more, especially where anitbiotics are concerned.
Swings and roundabouts this week. In one way I am a bit frustrated as I was just about recovered from surgery, and was getting into all sorts of projects, and now here I am confined to bed again. However, this is such a minor setback. Life could be hurling much worse at me, and thankfully, is not. Thank goodness for library books. What do you do to keep your immune system supported during an infection? I am looking for hints, as everyone but me around here seems to have an awful cold. I feel like I am living at a tuberculosis sanatorium..
Comments
No help on the immunity building though, except to get enough sleep, the minute I get over tired or a bit run down I pick up every virus around.
Cheers Kate
I hope the leg is improving, like you I really don't like to take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. They have their place and that is all they should be used for.
We use a homemade garlic syrup when we need support ourselves and stop the pesky colds and coughs taking over. We use this recipe.
Love,
Patricia/USA
Sustainable Mum, thank you for that great link on supporting the immune system - there's so much there to look at! Garlic syrup looks like it would keep everything and everyone away, up to and including vampires, no doubt:)
Anna, there is nowhere a leech can't go, including places you can't bear thinking about them being.. the worst I've heard though, is when they get behind your eyeball.. they come out eventually..
Patricia, thank you:)
I immediately thought how preferable it is that you are recovering from a leech, and not living in another era when someone had applied leeches to you, trying to save you from a deathly illness. And if all goes well, you will only have the leech to recover from and not the antibiotics. Those moments of sublime stargazing, followed by your doctor's prescription (minus the abx), sound like they have you on the path to healing.
Thank you making the most -- and a delightful post -- of your misfortune!
And when I foolishly consulted the internet about leech bacteria, I discovered that if one is using leeches medicinally, there is a particular protocol to prevent this kind of bacterial infection. So clearly, leeches are still used medicinally.. somewhere. For some reason.. interesting..
Anna, that is EXACTLY what I meant! Women bushwalkers sometimes have to learn the hard way not to squat too close to the ground when responding to the call of nature..
Kathy, thanks, I am doing much better now, antibiotics avoided. And yes, you are right, and that is the first question the GP asked - did you actually see the leech? So I'm glad I did. On the other hand, I don't know of any other creature that can make you bleed like a leech, but there are some nasty spiders around that you don't want to be bitten by, so as I said, it could have been much worse!
I hope the discomfort doesn't last long.
We watched the ISC pass directly over our house on a clear night a while back, and it was quite a remarkable sight.
Linda in NZ
My favourite memory of the ISS is the first time I ever saw it, the first night I spent at Paul's cabin in the forest - every star sparkles in that deep darkness, and the Milky Way splashes across the sky, and the ISS passes solemnly overhead, like a very earnest small planet on a mission..
As to immunity building - do as I say not as I do. Sleep, calming activities, different coloured fresh fruit, cups of tea and pieces of cake. (The latter two I do.)
Lucinda