Covid-19 Homecare Preparations

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

I'm working, as carefully as I can, on being ready to handle all but the worst of the menacing illness at home. With the burden our hospitals, we are likely to need to do more to nurse one another and ourselves if this hits.

Here comes what I've got so far. I'm aiming for science-based approaches, but not settling for planning to have professionals show me how when it hits. Send more ideas if you've got them.

Medications in stock, plus a tool
Tylenol for fever (not ibuprofen because of starting worries about how it works in troubled lungs, with a plan to pay close attention to not letting the fever get very strong because I kind of believe Chris Cuomo that it saps the will to fight).

Guafenesin for loosening congestion It's the active ingredient in Mucinex, and I choose a version without a cough suppressant added.

Dextromethorphan for cough suppression (planning to take quite rarely because the cough is a path to getting stuff out of lungs)

Trioral rehydration salts: a powder to add to water that restores the big things your body loses, which are salts and sugars. It fits WHO recommendations and it aligns with a doctor friend's advice when one of you was unwell at her house. Gatorade works the same way, but this adds fewer other ingredients on top of the needed ingredients.

A thermometer for knowing your temperature yourself and alerting medical folks.

Health boosting steps now
The wretched virus is most dangerous if it gets a grip on our lungs. Here's what I'm going to become a harder target for the nasty invaders.

Walking more for improved endurance and practice with drawing in air. Beau goes out with podcasts, while I mostly stay inside with news or The West Wing.

Breathing exercises, following this video, up to the point where the doctor is unclear about how to do the lying prone (on your stomach) part. For me, these are a bit taxing, and I'm hoping that doing them now several times a day can change that a bit and get me a bit stronger. More confidently, I think if I understand them and am no longer puzzled about how to do them now, it will be easy to use them if I'm ill.

Nutritional supplements. I'm taking an ordinary multivitamin, plus a slow-release iron tablet because I'm prone to anemia and anemia is prone to leave me breathing heavily after small efforts, plus vitamin C to support metabolizing the iron. All young persons related to me: my mom also gets anemic, and this may run in the family, so I recommend at least a multivitamin with the iron. I've seen references to zinc but haven't gotten confident about trusting that advice, so I'm settling for "hey, my multivitamin has a modest amount of that."

Something old, something new
Steam. In case of a challenging cough, consider letting the shower turns the place into a steam room, and staying there for, say, half an hour. This is an idea from my mom, more aggressive than a humidifier in the room. (Humidifiers can be good, but I'm not good at maintaining them).

Postural drainage is the other approach I will apply if anyone here gets ill, starting from this description. I've seen multiple websites with versions of this, and I think it's way clearer than the video I shared above about the thing to do while prone. This is also about helping one's lungs clear by not spending all one's rest time in one position, and a bit about raising the lowest parts of your lungs higher than your wind pipe for a while.

Food in case
If the people in your house take turns being sick, you can take turns offering each other help getting food you can manage. If you go down together, that's tougher. To give us some lead time, I've stocked extra:

• Frozen juice
• Ginger ale
• Saltines
• Canned soup
• Chicken broth

I hear I should also add:

• Pedialyte popsicles

With many delivery services backed up, I recommend also thinking about which friends you could ask for help to restock if you need more.

Not alone
For ordinary colds, there's no reason to tell a neighbor, a friend who lives near by, a clergy member, or (ahem) a parent or child. You have a pretty good idea of the limits on how bad it gets.

Our current enemy is a different matter. Accounts from survivors and those who cared for those who didn't make it suggest the lung difficulties can kick in rather fast and decisions to pursue hospital care can turn urgent quite suddenly.

Accordingly, I plan to let a family circle, plus several neighbors, know pretty much at the first sniffle, and then check in daily. I recommend a similar plan for all and sundry. For certain persons who know who they are, "recommend" can be accurately replaced by something like "insist on". Having each other is one of our strengths, and we need to use that strength for this struggle

"We will get through this, and we will get through it together."

Beef Stew In Progress

I'm still figuring this out, but aiming for it to have as big a place in as any winter meat-based dishing my cooking rotation.

Ingredients
2 pounds stew beef
2 pound russet potatoes
1 pound carrots
1/2 pound mushrooms
six cloves of garlic
1 large onion (not a sweet one)
1 bottle of Belgian Stout
A tablespoon of Better than Bouillion chicken
1/3 cup flour
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Tools
Big skillet (smaller will work but take longer)
Slow cooker
Cooking tongs
Eight hours to spend on something really good.

Steps
Combine flour, a teaspoon of salt, and a good sprinkling of pepper in a bowl. Stir, and add pepper if you can't see any.

In batches, toss the beef pieces around in the flour until all sides are covered, then shake so the extra comes off, put those pieces in another container, and repeat until everything is floured.

Coat the bottom of the skillet with olive oil and heat over medium heat until you smell the oil and can feel the heat when you hold your hand an inch above the surface.

Put a bunch of beef in, making sure the pieces are half an inch apart.

Now you're going to do two sets things at once.

The meat you'll flip after three minutes, then move to the crockpot after three more, then start a new batch and continue until it's all done.

Meanwhile, you'll peel the carrots, cut them into thick coins, cut the onion into pieces about the same size,  cut the mushrooms in thick slices, peel the garlic cloves, and slice them pretty thin (or if your slices seem thicker, cut them crossways a couple of times).

When the last batch of meat is done, take the pan off the stove for a minute or two to cool a bit. Add some more olive oil, so it's more than just a coating--like two or three coatings worth. Put the pan back on the heat, set lower than for the meat.

Add the carrots. You want them to sweat in the oil for about five minutes, flipping them once in the middle. You aren't aiming for them to brown: you're softening them and making the flavor richer.

While that's happening, finish the onion/mushroom/garlic steps if any are still waiting.

Gently move the carrots to the dish that used to hold the meat waiting to cook, trying to leave nearly all the oil.

Add the onions to the pan and repeat the process.

Add the mushrooms to the pan and repeat again--but when they've been cooking for four minutes, add the garlic and do a lot of stirring.

When the mushrooms have had their five minutes and the garlic has had one minute, tip the whole pan over the slow cooker so everything drops in at once.  Then add all the other vegetables.

Mix the better than bouillon with a cup of hot water and pour it into the crockpot.

Add the ale to the crockpot and then add a tablespoon of salt.

Stir every thing until the meat and vegetables are all mixed up.

Add a bit more hot water, enough for the meat and veg to be almost/not quite covered. You should see little islands above the lake.

Put the lid on the crockpot, plug it in, turn it on, and set it on high.

After an hour and a half, wash the potatoes and cut them into pieces that are roughly as big as you can put in your mouth happily without cutting them again. (You can peel the potatoes if you really want to. I wouldn't)

Put some three or four cups water on to boil.

When the stew has been cooking for two hours, add the potatoes to the crockpot, stir so that they're all mixed up with everything else, and then add boiling water to almost/not quite cover the meat and veg again.

Cook for another four hours, stirring only a couple of times.  Then test a piece of carrot and a piece of potatoes to see if they have the right texture. Right means "the way you like carrots and potatoes in your stew." If not, cook for half an hour and check again, repeating until you like what you find.

If you like your stew broth to have some thickness, now you can make that happen.  Put two tablespoons of flour in a cup, add four tablespoons of water, and mix them together really well with a fork. Add some not all of that to the crockpot and stir thoroughly for about a minute. Stop if you like the texture, or repeat the adding-and-stirring until you do. Be sure to give it a full minute so you can see how much thickness it adds.

When you like the stew, unplug the crockpot, put some in bowls, add some pepper and eat.

(If you put the pepper in while cooking, the potatoes will absorb it all. This wisdom is a gift from Uncle Paul. Use it.)

When the crockpot has had an hour or so to cool, you can move the crock to the fridge.