The thanksgiving holiday proved to be a mixed blessing. While Yan came over, we have to spend most time in the lab debugging the microcode. Worst yet, I caught a flu bug, as confirmed by how fast my doctor walked me out of the office today. He is prearmed with a standard pamphlet on flu FAQ when he walked in, and returned all my questions with a reference to the sheet. like what I should eat drink etc. To be fair, he did looked at my throat and listen to the lung. He suggested that I rest at home for 3-4 days. When I left, he did mention "it is highly contagious".
After the confirmation of the bad news and seeing the temperature soaring to 103.6 later, I went out shopping for chicken soup and advil, the standard flu supply. The Walgreen's advil range from 24 tablet to 100 tablet with various additives, but the main ingridient is the 200mg ibuprofen. the expriation date are all around 09/09. That probably means the bottle of Advil I had at home was bought about 1 year ago. I pick up a generic brand and quickly swallowed 2 tablets.
Then I went to Costco to pile up on the energy supply. For 3 days of liquid intake, I am budgeting 6 liters total, one gallon juice (there is a half-gallon at home) and another package (2 cups) of shrimp soup. To keep a steady supply of the protein, a 24 pack of yogurt is added to the shopping cart. Before leaving, I stopped by the medicine counter, found the Advil rack, the bottle contains 700 tablets and good till 03/11.
After carrying all the supplies up the stair, I felt the sweat and relief. That is only 1 hour after I pop in the Advil. Curious on the drug effect, I searched the ibuprofen drug data. Sure enough, the peak serum concentration is reached in 1 hour and the half life is about 2 hours. That is probably why the directions says every 4-6 hours.
by 4:30 pm, my temperature is already normal. And I am feeling much much better. Long live the Advil!
