Saturday, January 22, 2011

I Am Now Protected From Nerve Gas

Also, I'm honester. But I promised Tam she could tell the tale and you'll probably have to wait until tomorrow.

Update: It's tomorrow already. This stuff is named "Bella Alk," which sounds like a vampire with a taste for passed-out winos. The dosage is tiny and small wonder -- generically: Atropine, Hyoscyamine, Scopolamine (all just about the same thing, found on your conjurer's shelf in the henbane, mandrake, datura seed and deadly nightshade section) and Phenobarbital. Down the hatch! Ooooo, spiders.

(By way of explanation, spiders. This also explains why you always hear barking afterward even if there aren't any dogs in your neighborhood. And it is soooo frustrating for the spiders, too).

12 comments:

Jeffro said...

Glad you're back!

Alan said...

Got an atropine injection?

og said...

or thiopental, I'm guessing. Hope whatever it was for is over soon.

DaddyBear said...

That's pretty drastic. Most I've ever had is a cortizone shot.

Anonymous said...

Pyridostigmine bromine in your breakfast?

Jim

Chas S. Clifton said...

Henbane is really easy to grow, you know. Be your own pharmacist/witch.

Roberta X said...

Used to have Deadly Nightshade growing around the phone pole in the alley behind my old place -- pretty leaves, beautiful flowers. No kids running loose so I left it. My Mom was scandalized but hey -- free flowers!

og said...

I was given datura-scop and transderm scop patches for my vertigo, but it never did anything meaningful for me, turns out my issues are more labyrinthitis and otoconia related.

On the other hand, I eat gobs and gobs of stuff in the nightshade family* to begin with, wonder if that makes me immune to the effects of scop?

Hope this continues to help and you feel bestest soonest.

*tomatoes, tomatillos, and chinese lanternberries are all members of the nightshade family, and all are extra yummy!

Roberta X said...

Chinese Lanternberries are edible??? I knew about the others being nightshade-kin, yum.

BobG said...

Atropine comes from nightshade, and scopalomine is found in datura, which is why it is useful to the local shaman.

og said...

chinese lanternberries, cape gooseberries and tomatillos are very similar- you cannot eat unripe fruit, and even ripe fruit will give certain people a bad case of intestinal ickiness. The husk has to be papery and the plant almost dead looking. The fruit of the gooseberry, for instance, is sweeter than a tomato and has a bunch of Vit. C in it.

if you cut the ripe fruit off the vine and store it still encased in the protective husk, it will store a long time in a cool basement.

Most sources, even Petersons Guide to Edible wild plants call the berry toxic, but we ate them without much incident when I was a kid. These days I grow tomatillos and cape gooseberries, because I haven't had any success growing lanternberries.

The effects are gastrointestinal distress, and I spent a LOT of time as a kid in gastrointestinal distress, so I may not be the correct person to ask if something's edible!! LOL!

og said...

A friend told me I need to add to this comment thread the fact that on a relatively regular basis I eat things that could under no circumstances be classified as food, or even edible. So I'm utterly unqualified to tell anyone what can or cannot be eaten. Or so my friend says. Make of it what you may.