Sunday, 27 September 2009
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Why I Wish I Had a Flu Shot
I'm going to preface this by saying that I have never had the flu before, nor have I ever had a flu shot. My husband works in health-care so I reluctantly agreed to have the whole fam-damily vaccinated.
For what its worth, the flu shot is new every year. Sceintists predict the most prevelant flu for a season and a new vaccine is created.
The idea of flu vaccines is rather nifty, provided you don't get the flu before the vaccines are offered. That was the case in our house. Currently, we are in flu hell, despite doing everything one is supposed to do to prevent the flu. My husband brought the flu home from work. H1N1 is running rampant among his young clients, and the regular old flu is its merry side-kick.
You can bet your bippy that next year, I'll be the first in line for a flu shot, family in tow.
Why a flu shot? Because I thought I was going to die. Because even though I'm 100% better than I was, I can't entirely fill my lungs with air, even after using the inhaler I was prescribed. Because I couldn't imagine my child suffering the way I have, but as I write this, he complains of an aching body and fatigue.
Its not the flu that kills, its the complications that come from the flu, like when it goes into your lungs and you can no longer inhale? Being 33 years old didn't stop me from freaking the hell out when I couldn't breath. I can only pray that my son doesn't experience that. He probably won't because he'll see the doctor way before anything moves to his lungs.
That may be wishful thinking considering I had no warning: Once I had a cough, it was already there in my chest. That's the problem. When you don't have warning of how an illness is going to progress (like a tickle in the back of your throat), you don't expect to go from zero to fatal in an hour. One minute your asleep the next the your in the emergency room.
Of course, if you've never had the flu before, have healthy habits, wash your hands, get plenty of rest, and do everything 100%, you have nothing to worry about...Oh wait. That was me.
Plague is a necessary evil I suppose.
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