Take the jab!
I'm sitting at home writing this, with a temperature of 101 and diffuse aches throughout my body. I'm cold, in spite of layers of thermal underwear. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool and my throat feels like it's been swabbed with sandpaper. And though I'm not coughing much, when I do it feels like two guys with baseball bats have laid into both sides of my lower ribs simultaneously.
In other words, I have the flu.
What's worse, I have no excuse for it. A few weeks ago I covered a drive-through flu innoculation our city/county health personel put on at the county highway department barn. How difficult would it have been to pay the fee and get the jab myself?
Well, maybe I didn't want to spend the money, and maybe I'm kind of chicken about shots.
Apparently lots of people are, our City/County Health director said while the event went very well as a preparedness exercise, turnout was disappointing.
I guess the joke's on me. I had to spend the money and get blood drawn anyway.
Not that that did any good. My doctor said everything was normal in my bloodwork, which simply ruled out a number of other things I didn't have and confirmed what I knew already. It's flu.
So I said, "Bed rest, plenty of fluids..."
"That's right," he replied, "everything your grandmother would have told you. And, don't take anti-fever medication unless it gets above 102. Fever fights infection."
That's one of the reasons my father, a retired physician, says medical services are overused in America.
"Things that used to be treated with a mother's kiss are taken to the emergency room these days," is how he put it.
So now I've paid the co-pay to confirm what I already knew, and done my bit to raise the insurance premiums of my co-workers next time around.
In the meantime, I can't hug my kids (and I could use a hug right now,) I can't kiss my wife (and she's going to kill me if she gets sick while the play she's in is running,) and while nausea is one of the symptoms thankfully absent, nothing really tastes good either.
So do yourself, your family, and your co-workers a favor and take the jab!
In other words, I have the flu.
What's worse, I have no excuse for it. A few weeks ago I covered a drive-through flu innoculation our city/county health personel put on at the county highway department barn. How difficult would it have been to pay the fee and get the jab myself?
Well, maybe I didn't want to spend the money, and maybe I'm kind of chicken about shots.
Apparently lots of people are, our City/County Health director said while the event went very well as a preparedness exercise, turnout was disappointing.
I guess the joke's on me. I had to spend the money and get blood drawn anyway.
Not that that did any good. My doctor said everything was normal in my bloodwork, which simply ruled out a number of other things I didn't have and confirmed what I knew already. It's flu.
So I said, "Bed rest, plenty of fluids..."
"That's right," he replied, "everything your grandmother would have told you. And, don't take anti-fever medication unless it gets above 102. Fever fights infection."
That's one of the reasons my father, a retired physician, says medical services are overused in America.
"Things that used to be treated with a mother's kiss are taken to the emergency room these days," is how he put it.
So now I've paid the co-pay to confirm what I already knew, and done my bit to raise the insurance premiums of my co-workers next time around.
In the meantime, I can't hug my kids (and I could use a hug right now,) I can't kiss my wife (and she's going to kill me if she gets sick while the play she's in is running,) and while nausea is one of the symptoms thankfully absent, nothing really tastes good either.
So do yourself, your family, and your co-workers a favor and take the jab!
posted by Steve @ 7:37 AM
1 Comments:
At 2:21 PM,
TheWayfarer said…
I'll gladly take the H1N1 jab, but not the regular flu shot, because every time I do the latter, I get the flu...WTF!?
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