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Living alone when you're sick. How do you feed yourself?

Today I was diagnosed with pneumonia. Started an antibiotic and was referred to an ENT doctor.

Have had a recurrent sinus infection since July. Already took two courses of antibiotics. Frustrating. I'm usually very healthy. I'm an athlete, for heaven's sake!

That's why I was so slow while hiking last Tuesday. Not surprised I have pneumonia. Have been coughing hard, running a fever and feeling exhausted.

This morning, I started a big pot of chicken broth from frozen chicken bones I saved in the freezer. Broth simmered for five hours. The house smells wonderful.

Now I'm simmering chicken-vegetable-noodle soup with garlic, ginger and other herbs. Hooray!

Chicken vegetable soup: prescribed by mothers across the world.

LiterateHiker 9 Sep 20
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51 comments (26 - 50)

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1

By planning ahead and just eating enough to get better, that way you can avoid having to deal with the bathroom too much. Keep your drink in a container next to your bed and hope your illness doesn't last long. It won't be fun so try to sleep through most of the time.

1

I was really sick earlier this year and my wonderful mom was so worried, even though she lives in a different town, ordered soup and some of my favorites from local place near me and had it delivered. I had to send her a pic to show I was actually eating 🙂

1

keep the phone near you can't gt up call 911

1
1

Sounds like you’re doing all the right things. I hope you feel better soon.

1

I find living alone and being ill one of the most lonely activities ever. I don't need constant attention but to hear a human presence in the house is comforting. I do all of those things; make the broth etc but it is awfully lonely. I prefer to be the healthy one looking after my poor sick companion.That is more fun.

1

I forgot to add please get well soon ?

1

Chicken soup is good. I once knew a Jewish lady with 2 chickens. One got sick and she made chicken soup of the other one to help the sick one. It all worked out just fine.

1

Is go for the chicken soup also its complexity varies depending on how I feel ?

1

Last time I got really ill I stayed at my parents. I had the flu and didn't eat for a week, so the cooking part was simple.

1

Same way I did when I was married. I drag myself out of bed and get some food. But now I see that you mean what kinds of food. I eat the same.

1

You need plenty of rest and fluids and the antibiotic. The soup will be delicious and nourishing and will be comforting. After the antibiotic is finished the cough may persist and you may still feel tired for a week or two, sometimes a second course is required. Hope you recover quickly , but don’t try to excercise too soon, rest instead.

1

Very few times that i was really bad sick, once I needed to drive to another town to go to a doctor, almost exploding from migraine, and then sleep on the parking lot because the heavy painkillers were making me too sleepy to drive, by the morning the migraine was still there, I did't even went out of the parking lot and back to the hospital.
But in general when sick I bake a lot of stuff, just season on the same glass that will go to the oven, watch some series for the baking time and enjoy XD

1

I was 60 years old before I lived alone. I loved it until the first time I got really sick. Then it was a little weird.

1

That is one of the best prescriptions I have ever read. We went to the same Medical Schools. I would go the herbal additives in your soups. Being Athletic may include walking Pneumonia which is not something that Google Doctors know much about. Its Sept. going into Oct. and your in Washington State which is another concern. Has the rainy season set in? I was stationed in Seattle for 16 months from 1967-69 and I can say that I had my share of what your up against.
I got walking pneumonia while working construction in NYC in July and never knew what hit me. I would go home feeling fine and would wake up like I was in a prize fight my lungs were aching so much. I would take a hot shower and get on two cotton shirts after smearing my chest with Vicks ( Try JR Watkins Chest Rub) and put a sweatshirt on top and be prepared to wake up soaking wet, but soundly slept. No prescriptions needed or co payments. Also wore the sweats during the day to soak up the sweats and avoid the chills.

@Nevermind345

I sleep under a down comforter. Have been sleeping soundly and waking up in a big sweat.

As a slender, heat-producing ectomorph, with high exertion I sweat heavily. While hiking, I learned to change my clothes on my upper body.

When my shirt is wet with sweat, I get deeply chilled. Have had hypothermia twice while hiking. Dry clothes are essential.

Living in Eastern Washington, we don't get much rain. In the winter it snows.

@LiterateHiker I have the same problem when I go oversea and it begins with a head cold that goes right down to my lungs with my head feeling like I am sleeping in a Fish Bowl. It only happens when I go overseas, and it happens every trip because I go for 6 weeks or more.

1

Sorry to hear you are I'll. Make sure you get over this before you get active again. A relapse is not good and some have died because they did not take care.

Yes Jim Henson the creator of the Muppets died for that very same reason he wouldn't take care of himself

1

Oh man. I wish I was there to share it. Enjoy! May the force be with you and the chicken soup.

1

I have never once, in all my 60 years, lived alone. I think it would be a good idea to prep some meals & freeze for "sick days". When you finish your product, portion into Glad type freezer bags & freeze the leftovers. Perfect for when you feel under the weather or just feel like a lovely bowl of awesome soup.

Della Level 6 Sep 20, 2018

@Della
When I make soup, I make a "shitload," a technical cooking term. Usually have stacked, plastic containers in the freezer of healthy, homemade soups. Two servings apiece.

But I ran out this summer. That's why I'm making more chicken-vegetable soup. It's simmering on the stove.

1

Dunno..depends. When I was almost killed in 2014 by being beaten in the head by a thief who ambushed me for my birding camera, I couldn't even stand up.

I made it to my room, and Thai residents at the apartment building piled a couple of banana stalks near me, with a jug of water. The hospital told me to tell my friends to check on me each day to see if I'm still alive, so I did.

I managed to survive on bananas until I could walk to a nearby store for more food.

Now that I'm recovering from intestinal cancer, using cannabis oil, I have to walk long distances-seven blocks each way at times, to get food here in Songkhla, Thailand, since I sold my motorbike last year when I thought I was about to fly to the US.

I use cheap public transportation, or just keep trying to walk, despite being dizzy from cannabis oil and my muscles not working properly, depending on when I last took some.

Luckily, here in Thailand, there are food vendors everywhere selling food from motorbike side car carts, tables set up on the sidewalk, tiny shops, etc. Unluckily, there are only a few foods my body accepts, although the list keeps growing.

I found that I must eat certain foods at certain times if I want to improve and that changing my schedule or even buying food from a different vendor can result in symptom setbacks.

Each food schedule only lasts a couple of weeks before I start craving some other illogical food and the feeling intensifies until I finally take a risk and eat it. Usually, eating that food, no matter how silly, suddenly improves my health and often another food I had been eating before begins to disagree with me-often violently (sigh).

But whenever I humor this food weirdness, I improve rapidly, so I suppose my body needs certain nutrients at certain times.

1

Hope you get to feeling better quickly.
When I'm sick, it's just like any other day.
I eat when I'm hungry.

1

COMFORT FOOD! Lots of liquid (water) and comfort food. Something easy. For me it is Kraft macaroni and cheese. (Don't hate!)

Kraft mac'n cheese and Campbell's soup have their place.

1

When I'm too sick to feed myself, I don't eat. Luckily I don't get sick often. I caught some garden variety virus about a year ago and lost 22 pounds in a matter of days.

1

If I have a good soup then that's usually good, chicken noodle is good but less greasy the better. I also usually grab some orange juice for the C and hydration, keep some crackers around. Otherwise I take it slow and let my body fight it off. I've always done this in both single and attached periods.

Hope you recover soon 🙂

1

Out here we have a website called SkipTheDishes that you can order and have delivered from local restaurants. Kinda expensive, but when in need.

In my area, we have Door Dash which works the same way.

1

order in

@maxhyde

In this redneck area (Eastern Washington), pizza is the only food I can order in. I don't eat pizza.

But I can call in an order to go, and pick it up at the restaurant of my choice.

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