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the RULE of 3: when you or others around you are SICK

WHAT IF?

Playing the game of “What if?” can start to seem pretty real when you see it up close and personal, especially if it’s going on in your own house. Here’s our current scenario – Influenza Outbreak: a widespread influenza outbreak during the winter leads to a health crises. What do you do to protect your household, care for anyone in your house who is sick (while protecting the others), and reduce health care strain. What if you have a vulnerable person in your house?

So – let’s talk about this. It’s pretty close to home – what with Covid still fresh in all our minds. It’s especially fresh in my friend Karen’s mind – she was diagnosed recently with Whooping Cough, also known as pertussis (also known as the 100 day cough) which is highly contagious and apparently going around in Alberta just now. Who knew? Symptoms don’t show up for 5-10 days after exposure, and start out looking like a common cold, so you could easily be spreading the disease without even knowing you have it. Which is probably exactly how she caught it. It can cause serious and even deadly complications in young children and vulnerable people, so its best if you stay away from others if you’ve got symptoms, but who really even knows what the symptoms are? I’ve actually never even known anyone who had it.

I have a good friend with a child who’s received a transplant. I have a cousin who has received a transplant. These people who I love, take medication every day of their lives to suppress their natural immune system, so that their bodies won’t fight off and destroy the new organ that is keeping them alive. From the outside, they do not look any different than you and me, but to come into contact with illnesses that for you or me may be innocuous or uncomfortable at worst can be very serious for some – and may actually kill them.

Their situations make me much more aware of being healthy around them. And make me want to be more responsible in public.

📌

 Reviewing the Rule of Three: AIR, SHELTER, WATER AND FOOD – the big one for me in this scenario is definitely AIR since it is very hard to catch one’s breath – so I’m told. If you have asthma or other lung issues, it can be downright scary, and the LAST thing you want to do is pass it on to someone with young children.

Staying home is the responsible thing to do when you’re sick but how many do? Hopefully Covid made us a little more responsible about that. Wearing a mask in public if you have to go out is not as weird as it used to be – that goodness, so I’d hope if you knew you were sick, you’d wear one out of respect for everyone else you might come into contact with. Since the beginning symptoms of Pertussis are identical to those of a common cold, courtesy implies that if you think you’re coming down with a cold, you’d cover your mouth, cough into your elbow, wash your hands frequently, use hand sanitizer and follow all the other usual protocols we learned.

It goes without saying that those preventative measures would be implemented for one’s own protection, but also to prevent you spreading the disease if you were sick.

And the last area of focus is FOOD. I know several people who live in apartments and rely on public transit to get around, including going to a grocery store. For some, if you’re not feeling well, going out to buy groceries suddenly becomes a much bigger job than it used to be. But . . . . what if you had a good supply of food on hand? What if you had at least an extra week or two worth in your pantry? What kind of peace of mind would that give you with one less thing to worry about? Especially if you’re not able to work, and are not getting paid.

And what if you’re well enough but several people you know are down with the flu? and it seems like such a bad one? You still have to go to work, and still have to get groceries. How you do protect yourself?

These kinds of scenarios are not obscure. They are very real, highly likely and happen ALL the time. Just because it isn’t happening to you right now, doesn’t mean you might not suddenly find yourself in that situation as easily as anyone else might? Why not you?

The question is then: What would you do? What have you already done to prepare for such a scenario?

Do you have a couple of weeks or more of shelf stable food on hand to at least take that worry away?
Do you have a little money set aside to buy prescription medication if necessary? to cover some bills if you have to miss work for several days and don’t have coverage?
Do you have some common over the counter medications on hand? Advill? Tylenol? etc.
Do you have a friend or relative in mind who you could call on to help you if needed?
Have you made yourself available to others who might need help in a similar situation?
Do you have emergency numbers handy if you need them?
Is your phone usually charged?

What are some other things that you can prepare for JUST IN CASE?

I’d like to hear your thoughts or experiences on this subject. Feel free to comment below.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle

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Thanksgiving – food and memories

I don’t know when I started loving fall and Thanksgiving. The colours, the smells, the foods, the geese flying south, the warmth of the sun on still autumn days, the crunch of leaves while walking in the river valley, sitting around the fire on crisp evenings, . . . . . Not sure if I always have loved it, or if it started with autumn memories that included Dan. We started dating in Edmonton during the late summer, and I moved away within weeks to Cold Lake.  I was a teenager just starting high school. He came up to see me a time or two and we wrote for a while, but long distance romances when you’re that young are difficult at best.

Two years later I was passing through Edmonton again in the late summer and we reconnected for a short while. A couple of dates and I was back in Cold Lake in September to begin my final year of high school. I had grown up a little, he had grown up a little more.  The following weekend, he drove to Cold Lake to visit me and I prepared us a picnic lunch.  There are plenty of beautiful places to go for picnics around Cold Lake, and we had a lovely time.  This became the beginning of many weekend pilgrimages from Edmonton to Cold Lake, throughout the fall and winter.  It wasn’t long before we became engaged.  He got an insider look at my family in all our glory: good, bad, and yes, even the occasional ugly.  He came to church with me on Sundays and met many of my friends.   Conversations lasting many hours helped us get to know each other, and eventually winter turned to spring.  He wanted to get married in the spring, but for me, it had to be fall.   I needed a little bit of time between high school and the commitment of marriage. And fall had become a significant time in our story anyway.  We were married the following October.  Thanksgiving weekend.  My apologies to everyone who had to give up their Thanksgiving weekend that year to travel to our wedding. That meant you didn’t get your usual traditional Thanksgiving Dinner – which I never considered at the time.   Sorry ’bout that.

Thanksgiving includes DINNER to me – one that involves planning and preparation.   In the beginning, we were always at one of our parents’ homes on the Thanksgiving weekend. There were some constants between our homes of course: roast turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes with gravy,  cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. And there were some variables: brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, broccoli salad, perogies, cabbage rolls, variations on pies and pumpkin, and my Gramma Harrison’s marshmallow fruit salad – depending on where we were.  But it was always with family. That was the critical component.

Thanksgiving however, is more than dinner. It’s memories. It’s harvesting the garden. It’s late summer tomatoes. It’s apples, and apple juice, purple grapes and high bush cranberries. It’s the humidity of the canner, the hum of the dehydrator. It’s crisp outside, warm inside. It’s family. It’s the time of year (not just the day, but all the weeks leading up to it) that the bounty of the season causes one to pause and reflect on those things we’re most grateful for. And more than that, its a good time to vocally express our appreciation to others and to Heavenly Father.

Over Dan and my years together, Thanksgiving evolved from us going to our parents homes, to us hosting our parents and others.  That was when the metal of tradition was put to the test.  Which of our family’s established traditions would we incorporate into our lives? and which new traditions would we create with and for our children?  For those traditionalists like me, we like certain things done the same way, every time.  We like revisiting celebrations the same way.  For me, Thanksgiving must include turkey with all that means to me. Christmas Eve much include bread and cheese.  Easter must include coloured eggs.   All the above must include PEOPLE. But in these difficult Covid times that are messing with our usual way of doing things we can still find ways to celebrate and enjoy important ‘traditions’.   In fact there has probably never been a time when we were in more need of the cohesiveness of traditions.

apples, apple juice, apple sauce, apple leather, apple crisp, and of course . . . apple pie

I am a gardener, so harvest has particular meaning to me, and a definite connection to our Thanksgiving menu.  In addition to the must-have turkey with fixings, dinner must include things I’ve harvested.  Things like Cranberry juice from our own high bush cranberry. Made into a sparkling drink.  Homemade Cranberry sauce – made from fresh or frozen cranberries, or even better – freeze dried cranberries. Dressing made with homemade bread, onions, garlic and other herbs from the garden. Vegetables of course, from this year’s harvest. Apples: apple pie, apple juice, apple sauce, apples in salad. Pumpkin: maybe pie, maybe tarts, maybe cheese cake, maybe cookies, maybe dip for gingersnap cookies. Grape: pie from our own grapes.  Bread – homemade rolls. And of course, FAMILY – the greatest harvest of all.  This year, by stupid covid necessity our numbers will be fewer.  One son’s family will be with their other grandparents.   One son’s family will be with another son’s family.  My mother will be with my niece.   Our daughter’s and another son’s families will be with us.  Friends – another great harvest, will be not be around our table this year.  But we will gather as we can, and enjoy the food and companionship of each other.  

Don’t ever discount the importance of food in celebrations, traditions and memories.  Most of us have very strong food-memories, for good or bad. That is why food is so important in how we celebrate special days, and in how we associate with certain people. A strong (and good) food memory for me is “chicken noodles”; many years of family gatherings and happy times are associated with this family favourite. And it is the natural suffix of Thanksgiving turkey. Ukrainian Cabbage Rolls are another strong food-memory for me. No one could make cabbage rolls like Dan’s step-mom Margaret, and no family dinner that she put on would be complete without them. Its been a loss for many years. University of Massachusetts Professor of Psychology Susan Krauss Whitbourne teaches us that “Food memories involve very basic, nonverbal areas of the brain and can bypass your conscious awareness.   This is why you can have strong emotional reactions when you eat a food that arouses deep unconscious memories. . . . The memory goes beyond the food itself to the associations you have to that long ago memory.”   For many of us, those food memories are already well established, but our children’s food-memories are still forming, and we have a tremendous influence on their creation and evolution.   Wouldn’t it be nice if most of those associations were good ones?

Happy Thanksgiving dear ones.


Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle