Generally, I don't get caught up in any kind of doom and gloom media stories. Since the whole "world-will-cease-as-we-know-it" coverage of Y2K, where I frantically squirreled away cases of bottled water and canned goods, I have viewed the media with a jaundiced eye. I have felt that the urgency with which they deliver warnings is in direct proportion to where they sit in the ratings war. So yeah, I don't get too worked up about the latest cautionary tale.
(Except for tornado warnings because they're a special breed of terror and I pay attention to those babies)
Occasionally, I have been wrong. For instance, while meteorologists across the nation bleated on and on about Hurricane Katrina and how we could expect the apocalypse, I shook my head and cursed them for their fear mongering. We all know how that one turned out.
And earlier this year, as the first chatter about H1N1 hit the radar, I shrugged. I noted the hysteria in Mexico, heard about the illness in New Zealand and then our summer came, the immediate threat went away and I promptly tossed Swine Flu off my radar. Pandemic, schlemic, I thought. (insert wet raspberry sound here)
But you know what? It scares the crap out of me. I have never taken either one of my children to get a flu shot because I didn't see the reasoning behind injecting oneself with last year's strain and manufacturing obsolete antibodies. I thought it was a giant waste of time and resources. This year, however, we will be lining up with THOUSANDS of others to get whatever shots are made available to the public. I am terrified.
Chris at Rude Cactus discussed this subject in a post last week and it seems we've all heard the same numbers.
NINETY THOUSAND possible deaths in the US alone.
It makes the hair stand up on my neck. How exactly do you contain flu in a school? It's a part of life. Every winter at some point, my kids come home with fevers, dripping noses and wet, rattling coughs. I will be watching both of them like a hawk hoping that H1N1 gets a place right beside Y2K in the history books and doesn't turn into a disaster like Katrina.
2 comments:
So, if you GET H1N1- you have a 0.69% chance of dying.
The average person is more likely to die from diseases related to tobacco, diabetes, and obesity.
Just for perspective.
Don't get me wrong, just because you are worried, doesn't make you paranoid.
It's funny how different things bother different people differently. Whew! Did you get through that sentence?
H1N1 doesn't bother me, nor do any of the other flu strains - I guess because even if you caught 2 different flu stains every single winter of your entire life, you'd never get through all of them. Hence, I don't bother with flu shots. They are last year's strain, which you've probably already had a mild case of anyway. I think. Could be wrong. But, while in the Navy, where the flu shot is required, I fought it every single year. Because all the damn shots ever did was make everyone sick as a dog for days. On a ship, with controlled air, the damn thing spread like wildfire, then kept going around, and around and around all freaking winter. Bleh.
One year, I aruged with the corpsman that it was a live vaccine, and therefore, it's purpose was to give you a mild case of the flu anyway, so you could build anti-bodies. He tried to claim it wasn't a live vaccine. Then I told him I had my yellow fever shot 1 week ago (a live vaccine). You can't have a live vaccine shot within 3 weeks of another live vaccine shot. Suddenly, the corpsman said I couldn't get the flu shot. Duh? Not a live vaccine, hey asshole?
Whatever your thoughts on H1N1, fu shots, etc., I hope your entire family escapes the cough, cold, flu season with 0 down days! :-)
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