And now, the flu

The last four days have been totally consumed by my wife's flu. As usual, this year we did not get flu shots. We haven't gotten flu shots - ever - and, since we have been together, we have not had the flu in, well, I don't think ever.

Not so this year.

Who knows how or when you can get it? The flu virus can sit there on a doorknob for several days, just waiting for an unsuspecting hand to grasp it and then touch their eyes or nose. And then you show no symptoms for a few days, so you have no clue where you picked it up, but you can be very contagious.

And pick it up she did.

By Monday she was starting to feel a little odd. She went to work anyway, thinking it was just a cold, but came home by noon feeling pretty lousy. She'd called the doctor and they were going to call her back. They actually did call back, but she wasn't there in the afternoon, and they left a message on her voicemail. A swing and a miss.

By Tuesday morning, she was beginning to feel achy and was starting to cough a lot. The doc called her in an Rx for a nasal inhaler to help her coughing which I picked up after work for her. By Tuesday evening, she had a splitting headache and was feeling really weak.


By Wednesday, she was in hell. Every part of her body ached, even her skin. Her cough was rough, productive and frequent. She couldn't lie down comfortably. She couldn't sit up for any period of time. In the few moments of sleep that she could catch, she would moan and groan over and over. It ripped my heart out to see her in such pain and to hear her moans. I stayed home from work to be her caregiver/husband. Caregiver is a LOT of work! It's like being a mother or something. Cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, empty the dishwasher, sanitize this and that, all the while watching the sick one with trepidation.


I'm not a praying man, hardly religious at all, but I found myself asking the universe to make her better. Did the universe respond?


At first, the doc didn't want to see her. There's been a lot of this going around. But then when she began exhibiting symptoms of pneumonia, he called her in for an appointment. He wasn't sure if she had pneumonia or not. She has a history of colds leading to sinus infections, and that's a simple path towards pneumonia. Now she had an Rx for a penicillin antibiotic, a codeine cough syrup, plus the inhaler. If she didn't get noticably better within 24 hours, he said, we should do a chest X-Ray.


There really is no treatment for the flu virus, except bed rest and lots of fluids. With all the miraculous medicines we have today, we still have no cure for some of the most-common ailments, like colds, flu or cancer. And we have the best medical system in the world?


Wednesday was her worst day. She wanted to die. She began to cry, it hurt so bad. It was torture for me, and even worse for her. She began to make sarcastic remarks to suggest that I should call 911 - dementia? - but her symptoms were not pneumonia. Besides, her fever never got above 101, and going to an emergency room with a temperature of less than 101 would probably just get you laughed at and kicked out.


I re-discovered that WebMD (that's a link) is an excellent source for medical information. They cover everything under the sun there in an unbiased way. Sometimes it does conflict with itself, however. I guess a lot like medicine. Again, perhaps this is why they call it "practicing medicine." One section of WebMD said that a fever of 104 was "high" and another said that 106.5 was high and dangerous. Sometimes you don't get a straight answer. Such is life. Still, it's a great resource.


Somehow, I think I have escaped catching the flu. WebMD helped me remember to sanitize anything and everything that we use in common: bed sheets, telephones, doorknobs, light switches, etc. I washed my hands so often they were becoming chapped.


By Thursday morning, she was feeling good enough to come downstairs and have a bite of food, but got totally exhaused climbing the stairs back to bed. Her cough was getting better and she no longer had a constant headache. The body aches were lessening too. She was on the road to recovery.


By Friday morning she felt good enough to take a shower, thinking that she just might go to work. (Her Catholic upbringing, or something, has instilled an incredible amount of guilt in her, which I do NOT exploit. Really, I don't. Oh, I sure could, if I was that kind of person. OK, I do now and then, but only when I'm horny. Just kidding.) She wanted to go to work badly. She felt bad about missing the whole week of work. But the mere act of showering totally exhausted her and I easily convinced her to skip work again and she'd have the whole weekend to rest up.


Moral? Wash your hands often. Sanitize everything. Be a good caregiver.