Anyone who knows me well knows that I appreciate the back-to-nature approach to most things. So when our kids got the Cough That Would Not Die this winter I immediately dove into my bag of natural remedies in an attempt to kick it to the curb. I've relied on these tricks for a long time and they've yet to fail me, so I was pretty confident that it would be no different this time. We did high doses of vitamin C in our fruit and yogurt smoothies, elderberry syrup, spoonfuls of honey, lots of special hot tea (red clover, especially for coughs), extra cod liver oil for vitamin D, coconut and eucalyptus oil rubbed onto little chests and lots and lots of prayer. All of these were helpful in relieving symptoms, but when I finally decided that we were dealing with a bacteria instead of a virus I knew that the answer to our prayers was going to come in the form of a little help from modern medicine.
After more than two months of constant coughing from one of the kids or another, I'm so thankful to report that we're finally on the mend! And thanks to a generous friend, I now have some kefir fermenting on the counter to rebuild all the good bacteria that became collateral damage in the attack against the CTWND.

Three cheers for modern medicine (and for sleeping at night again!).