Year End Wrap Up

It's the last day of 2017; we're thankful that all and all it was a good year with surgeries and all.

We saw the kid's families once during the summer in Indiana and again in the fall on our way south.

On the downside once we reached the valley for the winter I contracted the Texas Crud which lasted for 2 weeks, 9 boxes of Kleenex, 2 boxes of Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold, 3 bags of cough drops, NyQuil, DayQuil and a ¼ bottle of Buckley's Mixture, which Dale ordered off the web. In the past Buckley's has usually put an end to any cold I get in short order. This time it took multiple doses, which is awful. A commercial that stopped running a few years when the company was sold touted, “It Tastes Awful, But Works!”

BTW the contents of this mixture, that is Canada's revenge for some unwarranted transgression, is as follows according to the “Wired” website:

Dextromethorphan
This cough suppressant acts on the brain, not the throat. It breaks down into a sedative, making your nervous system more tolerant of tickles that would otherwise cause coughing.

Menthol
Makes inhaled air feel cleaner and cooler, but it doesn’t actually decongest you. You only think you’re breathing more easily.
Canada Balsam
A fancy name for turpentine made from the resin of fir trees. It functions as an expectorant, helping you hack up the gunk in your respiratory tract.
Ammonium Carbonate
In smelling salts, the fumes of this volatile compound irritate your lungs to jolt you awake. Here, it causes mucous membranes to produce less-viscous phlegm that’s easier to cough up.
Tincture of Capsicum
After the ammonia and menthol flavors have faded, what’s that burning, tingling taste that remains? Probably this preparation of ground-up peppers dissolved in at least 80-proof alcohol. It supposedly helps prevent nausea from all that turpentine.
Pine Needle Oil
Very big in aromatherapy circles, where it’s described as “invigorating” and “uplifting.” Here it’s used to uplift phlegm and mucus from your bronchial passages.
Carrageenan
Buckley’s calls this seaweed extract a “viscosity-suspending agent,” and it thickens many processed foods. But certain types of carrageenan also have antiviral properties. It seems that the gummy goodness can block the cold virus from entering your cells and replicating.
Glycerin
Another thickener. Americans expect that syrupy mouthfeel in their cold medicines.
Sodium Saccharin
In Canada, Buckley’s is sweetened with cyclamates — legal in most countries but not the US, where a dodgy 1969 study said they gave bladder cancer to rats. In the US, they use saccharin. Cowards.
As you can see one dose is usually all it takes more than one is normally more than your body will tolerate. We were introduced to this concoction, by Dale's parents from their trips to South Texas, the Canadians in their park pushed it upon them as a cold cure all or maybe just a nasty joke, I feel for it. I would usually buy 3-4 bottles on my fall business trips to Ontario, and subject the entire family to this cure for a cold. Usually for the kids just the sight of the bottle was enough to make sniffles disappear, well at least while home. At one time before the sale of the US operations we could purchase it at E&S Sales a bulk food store that caters to the Amish in Shipshewana IN