01 March 2006
Influenza
I wrote this two weeks ago. I'm trying to get back into the habit.
Like geese moving north, or Maypoles and baskets, there are cues we look to for the changing seasons. One of the cues for fall is the line of old people on the local news waiting for their flu shots. I have always been hostile to the idea of flu shots, no doubt thanks to the US Navy. I received flu shots every year without fail, as a healthy young male lion aged 19 and 20, in flu hotspots like Orlando and Honolulu. I was more likely to see a mermaid then a baby or old person, in the prime of my life, yet the Navy still saw to it that I’d feel lousy for an afternoon after receiving one of their blankety-blank shots. I turned them down with a sneer when offered by my doctor and sons’ pediatrician.
Until I got the flu. If you are a person who believes in an old-testament style angry and vengeful God, then rest assured He didn’t like the KC Star column last week, as I came down sick the Thurs before it appeared and am still suffering now. I first went to the doctor Monday and was two quarts low, receiving two liters of fluids right in his office. I was too late for Tamiflu or anything that would do me any good however. Now I’m just sick, for perhaps another week. Thank goodness for sick time. And grandparents, who have been helping my wife and I immensely as we are both sick.
Like geese moving north, or Maypoles and baskets, there are cues we look to for the changing seasons. One of the cues for fall is the line of old people on the local news waiting for their flu shots. I have always been hostile to the idea of flu shots, no doubt thanks to the US Navy. I received flu shots every year without fail, as a healthy young male lion aged 19 and 20, in flu hotspots like Orlando and Honolulu. I was more likely to see a mermaid then a baby or old person, in the prime of my life, yet the Navy still saw to it that I’d feel lousy for an afternoon after receiving one of their blankety-blank shots. I turned them down with a sneer when offered by my doctor and sons’ pediatrician.
Until I got the flu. If you are a person who believes in an old-testament style angry and vengeful God, then rest assured He didn’t like the KC Star column last week, as I came down sick the Thurs before it appeared and am still suffering now. I first went to the doctor Monday and was two quarts low, receiving two liters of fluids right in his office. I was too late for Tamiflu or anything that would do me any good however. Now I’m just sick, for perhaps another week. Thank goodness for sick time. And grandparents, who have been helping my wife and I immensely as we are both sick.
