A Mother's Touch

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

- Voltaire

The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. 

Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.

                                                              -- Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus 

This post is, again, late because Noora has been battling her first cold which has now turned into mostly a fever. The poor little thing is so miserable. She's quite cute when she's miserable, so it's not a bad thing to be playing nurse. I think she and I both had a bout of West Coast sniffles on Saturday and Sunday, as well. However, her fever is looking to be a sign of teething. So, babies and fevers...no big deal, right? Some Tylenol, some cuddling and BAM! cured. Right? No....

Yesterday was not only fever day, but Labour Day. Holiday. Store and pharmacy deciding not to be open day. No worries...a responsible parent would have made sure to pack the Tylenol when we moved. And, I'll have you know, I DID pack the Tylenol....however, the yummy liquid 'white grape' stuff is sitting in a drawer in Nova Scotia. *sigh* So...what's a Mom to do?

...I could crush up a tiny bit of regular Tylenol...nope...I'm not chemist and have no way of measuring the dosage...
.....
......I could keep her in the bathtub all day....yes, that might work....hmmm, a fussy, pruney baby isn't really a good idea....
.............
.....think, think, think.......someone must have some, this place is full of kids.....only problem is, I can't think of anyone with a baby right now....even if I do think of someone, where on earth did I put the phone book....
...OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD....*light bulb goes on*
...
Hmmm, when we were in Vancouver, for what reason I have no clue, Carol told me how to lower a fever using onions. Ok....you mince up the onions, then put them on the soles of the feet, wrap with plastic and put inside socks/slippers and leave for about an hour. She said it had worked for her husband. Hmm, does it work for babies? Well...let's give 'er a try. No harm in that, and if it doesn't work, well, I suppose we'll have minced onions to put in dinner tonight.

Have any of you tried this? I can tell you, it's ALOT messier than giving a baby Tylenol. Geez. Getting her feet in, wrapped up, and into socks was no problem. I sat on the couch with her and she had a little snack. *sniff sniff* Hmm, I smelled onions....my eyes began to water....oh, come on!!! She had been moving her feet and the plastic wrap came undone and onion juice was oozing out of her socks onto my leg. Just wonderful...but, it'll come out in the wash. I checked her temperature and it had stayed the same. Good.
....checked it again, it went up a tiny bit but that's ok...up before down...I think.
..........an hour had passed and she still wasn't feeling the greatest. I checked it again and it was 39.3C...ugh, these stupid onions aren't working. So I sent Willie off to the convenience store in Charlotte to hunt down some baby Tylenol or something. I took off her VERY aromatic socks and popped the little thing into the sink for bath # 2. She was happily splashing away in the lukewarm bubbles, so I checked her temperature again...39C..hmmm, had the onions done their job? Maybe I hadn't given them enough time...hmm, Noora was seeming to cheer up...maybe the trick was adding the bath. Huh! Take that, fever.

Willie returned after a while with some Advil but I had to improvise with the dropper from her Vitamin D because it wasn't "infant" Advil...I gave her 1ml JUST to let the fever know that I was now fully equipped to kick it's ass. *sigh* Crisis over. Wow...I was kinda impressed with the common onion. I Googled it to make sure it hadn't just been some quack method but nope...it seemed that minced onion or potato worked, garlic paste or even washcloths soaked in egg whites would do the trick. I'm always so surprised when 'natural medicine' works just as well, sometimes better, than 'conventional medicine'.

I will say conventional medicine may be less messy, easier to administer and probably tastier (I've seen some nasty ingredients in natural remedies...ick) but if you don't have access to it and you or your child is in pain or sick...I vote natural. Natural is how it's always been...we used to be such a big part of the earth, and now we view it as something we merely walk upon. A tiny chunk of onion has renewed my faith in the earth's healing powers and I intend to learn more ways to heal, with the earth's blessing.