Treatment on a plane

On the plane from Las Vegas to Santa Fe, NM, Friday afternoon (more about the fabulous trip to Santa Fe with Ali MacGraw later), Mia started coughing. I tried to calm her. She does that occasionally at home and I prop her up, gently pat her chest and it goes away. It didn't work, so I instead punctured a gel capsule of ubiquinol CoQ10 (coenzyme Q10) and squeezed it under her tongue. Within seconds, her coughing stopped and she was fine again. A gal in the seat next to us asked if I had given Mia a tranquilizer. I explained what it was, that it improved her heart's pumping ability and circulation, and she said she would not have believed it had she not seen the quick reaction for herself. I learned about putting it under her tongue from my friends Harriet and Al Needleman. Al's a pharmaceutical inventor/manufacturer of nutritional supplements. Al had suggested it for times just like this, when Mia has difficulty breathing, so that the CoQ10 goes straight to her blood stream without delay. Mia pictured earlier this year at the Mardi Gras Barkus Parade in New Orleans' French Quarter (we'll be going again next year). Photo, below, of Gracie Breland and Mia. Photos by Barb Davis. It wasn't the flight that caused Mia's coughing; she has those bouts at home. It just happened to occur on the flight. Once she stopped coughing, she lay on my arm and fell asleep for the rest of the flight. I've been giving her a teaspoon of coconut oil twice a day instead of just in the morning, and that seems to be helping. She's doing well.