the strange aftermath of...

OUR CALIFORNIA HOLIDAY

For more than twenty years, Miguelita could not smell..She lost her sense of smell a few years after we arrived in Toronto. The air quality in North America is not the same as in the Philippines..Immigrants, especially those who were born and who grew up back home will become allergic to so many things here, especially in a busy city like Toronto.

Anyway, her ailment was diagnosed as allergy, then asthma then a combination of both asthma and allergy. Great. In a combination of two ailments, if one won't get you, the other one will...

She underwent 2 operations in the sinus region, just to try to see if she could get her smell back. But both operations were FAILURES.. She had drippy nose most of the time. And when she goes up a long flight of stairs or even an inclined road ( like Baguio City's for instance ) then she would suffer from shortness of breath. Then she has to resort to a a kind of puffer. She has already resigned that she could never smell again due to her perennial/stuffy nose..

Until we visited California this summer.

On the 2nd day of our arrival in Echo Park, LA ( in Arsenio's pad ) she discussed her ailment with Arsenio..

I had the same ailment," he said.."But I had it was cured by apple cider vinegar."

"How?" Miguelita and I asked him.

"Take two teaspoon of the vinegar, let it stay in your throat, then make a slight movement in your nose ( hard to explain here ) so a bit of the vinegar fume would pass through your nostrils. The strong acidic vapor is supposed to loosen the phlegm in your nose..Do it all everyday..

If you can not do the nose trick, just swallow 2 spoons of vinegar daily.."

From that day, Miguelita started her apple cider vinegar regime.Well, in the past, we tried so many medicines, tablets ( someone reommended Red Korean Ginseng which we have been taking for 2 years already.) One more home remedy won't hurt. Besides apple cider vinegar is cheap and it makes a good adobo recipe.

 

The following Friday, we went to Vegas with Eddie and Susan Santos. All newcomers to Vegas are supposed to get sick because of the brutal mid day temperatures. We were no exceptions.

Even at 11:00 pm, the temperature was still humid and uncomfortable. When we came back to LA 2 days after, Miguelita received a text from her sisters in Seattle. Herbrother Mike was seriously sick. He had prostrate cancer.

Miguelita and I  were still sick. I always took tylenol everyday when a splitting headache started and my throat was inflammed. Miguelita decided to go to Seattle while I stayed behind. She left on a Friday. On a Saturday afternoon, I and Arsenio's family  went to Cambria and came back Sunday night at around 11:00 pm.

Was still sick of course, but I continued with the tylenol and apple cider routine. The headache subsides in an hour after the tylenol sets in. I was worried: what if we would need hospitalization in LA?..Perish the thought...

Monday morning, Arsenio gave me a haircut. He was an A-1 barber. Am not surprised especially after hearing his dad was also an A-1 barber in Asingan. I thought a friend would pick me up Monday evening. But I got stood up..Oh well, there is always the next time..

Tuesday morning, Miguelita was back in LA..She was not still feeling well, just like me. Most of the time she was taking a nap.

She said her brother was very very happy to see her again after so many years. It was a tearful, emotional experience. She visited him everyday for the remaining of her stay in Seattle. He could heardly speak anymore and they communicated with words, signs and smiles. Pain was already coming in waves to his body and he wrenched when one hit him. He was to die a day after Miguelita left Seattle..

Tuesday night was the time we went to Hollywood boulevard around the areas of Chinese Gruman and Kodak theatres.

We were back in Toronto Wednesday afternoon at around 1:00 pm..So nice to be in the familiar sights, sounds and smell of 19 Dixon road.

Only then that Miguelita noticed that she could smell the interior of the house as we opened the door.

Her runny nose became dry. She found out she could walk up our house steps without losing her breath. She entered the bathroom and exclaimed exultantly: "I could smell the soap!" She got her smell back after 25 years. Many doctors said, her smelling nerves are already gone and she could never smell anymore..

What happened? What cured her? We can never be sure..The apple cider vinegar? Maybe. Arsenio can testify to the vinegar cure which cured HIS allergy..

But Miguelita?..She is just so happy to regain back her sense of smell. She has not used her asthma puffer anymore. It is almost a month now when for 2 decades, she puffed it everyday.

This is a true story. But I am not telling that she was cured by any single substance. She was just cured, period.

And we will always thank God for it!.---#