Little Brown Vial of Heathy Goodness

So, my brother was here for about a week, which included us going out quite a bit and being up until the wee hours of the morning watching jazz, flamenco, wine-tasting, tapeando (eating tapas), and hanging out with friends. It was definitely a fun time, but it left my immune system a bit spent and now I have something that seems like the flu, strep throat, something like that. And, while I was excited to have my mornings back to normal to return to a normal running schedule, instead I am exhausted, achy and lethargic.

So, today went to the the health food store / natural pharmacy a few blocks away to get what seems to me to be a "magic" and miracle potion to get my immune system back to normal. It all began last year when I found myself with the flu on and off for weeks (and instead of getting better it kept getting worse and returning with a horrible vengeance). After a few days of not getting better with huge quantities of orange juice, soup, water, sleep, vitamin C, and echanacea/goldenseal, I went to the doctor who proceeded to tell me that I had faranguitis/phranguitis (which by the way sounds horrible, even if i do know what the faranguis are (i can't remember the name in english, but they are in your throat; it sounds really bad, which since I felt horrible, actually made me feel a bit better - that it wasn't all just in my head). So he gave me an antibiotic, told me to take 1 gram of basically Tylenol (which by the way is a TON of pain killer and left me a bit in the clouds), gave me some horrible sounding syrup (it had something about phlegm in the name, gross), and sent me on my way. So, I took the medicine, minus the pain killer and it went away. Despite eating extra amounts of yogurt it left me with a yeast infection (sorry for the gross details). After getting rid of that, a few days later the whole cycle started over and then one more time. Normally I take the natural option of herbs, vitamins and just wading it out, but since it seemed like something more serious I had gone to the doctor not wanting it to get worse. Yet that didn't work. So, I then went in search of a health food store that might be able to "prescribe" something to boost my immune system and wipe out this sickness.

So I entered a health food store that said "natural medicine" on the outside. I explained the problem and the pharmacist told me that what I needed was vials of minerals (including gold, silver, and copper), bee propolis and herbs plus capsules of a mix of mushrooms. Now I know a decent amount about health food. (I worked at a health food store the last two years in high school and summers and holidays throughout college. I had planned to get both my MD and some sort of natural medicine degree, so through high school and college I read fairly extensively about vitamins, herbs, etc.,) Yet when I asked this woman what was in these secret vials that would cure my sickness, I didn't get a response that was very helpful. I was a bit leery (I mean there were 20 vials I was supposed to take, plus the somewhat strange sounding list of ingredients, and the fact that the woman was abnormally tan, bleach blond, and had excessive amounts of makeup didn't help), but I also was a bit desperate at this point, so I paid the 20 Euros for the vials and went on my way.

A couple of days later I felt completely back to normal. I took the box of vials she gave me and one more to make sure it was knocked out. From then on whenever I have gotten sick I go to this lady who gives me a box of seemingly magical vials of gold and silver, I take them and almost immediately am cured. Really. And with no strange side effects. I really don't understand, but since it's natural it's what I've begun to do. I mean it really seems magical. Within a day or so of taking this magical concoction I feel back to normal. So today I went, got my magical medicine and am beginning to feel much better.