There and Back Again!

I am sure many of you have heard about the old Chinese, "May you live in interesting times"!  My recent trip to the States for Thanksgiving with my mother was very interesting! Fortunately, the illness I had just before leaving England was not appendicitis and the antibiotics what they are supposed to and rid me of the urinary infection and ache in my side. I did, however, arrive with a cold, which soon resulted in an unexpected and unpleasant outcome.

In order to stem the tide of my streaming eyes and running nose I moseyed on down to the drug store to seek a cold remedy. As tends to be the case, I was overwhelmed by choices in selection but soon settled on one that said it was for people with high blood pressure. "Ah", thought I, "Just the thing for me!" And, indeed, the cold symptoms abated within a few hours...

At two in the morning I awoke, feeling very uncomfortable, rather hot and very itchy! When I looked in the mirror I was absolutely horrified. I was covered from head to toe in a red weals and totally uncomfortable. I was also worried that I had something contagious while staying in a place with many elderly people, including my mother! Every morning at around 5.30 a nurses' aide comes to my mother to put special support hose on her legs. So when she came in I stopped her and explained the situation to her. She thought it looked like an allergic reaction and called a nurse to come and have a look. The nurse agreed and brought me an antihistamine, Benidryl, and I waited. I also stopped taking my newly acquired cold remedy, Coricidin HBP Cold & Flu.

Happily, 24 hours later and the redness and weals and itching had all but disappeared. Later that day, while talking to my sister she said that she had only once had such a reaction and it was when she had taken some cold medication many years ago! The same medication!

By Thanksgiving I was completely recovered and we had a lovely celebration. You know, though what they say about troubles coming in threes? There was one final element to come -- but that was waiting for me as my visit was just coming to an end -- and no, I'm not going to relate that -- just yet!