Swine Flu Hysteria
Yesterday I came down with a cold, rare for me but not unheard of. The people I work with immediately wanted me to go to the hospital and get checked for swine flu. ——Are they out of their everlovin’ minds?
I have a head cold. You know how it goes. Your nose runs, you cough because of the drainage and you feel crappy. When last I checked the CDC wasn’t issuing warnings about a pandemic of runny noses.
But there’s so much hysteria about H1N1 in the press -hey, that’s what sells papers- that people think they are going to die if they come in contact with anyone who has the sniffles.
In the case of one of the women I work with who has a friend who was diagnosed with H1N1. She felt a little feverish, she called hpn and they told her needed to rush right down and get checked out. The doctor on the other hand talked to her for about 2 minutes and told her to go home, take a couple of aspirin and go to bed.
It’s just the flu!
Remember when the news was telling everyone that the bird flu would kill us all? —You’ll notice it didn’t.
Every year the flu in it’s myriad forms kills people. Mostly people who don’t have adequate health care, are very young, very old or already sick. Yes, once in a blue moon an apparently healthy individual dies, but this happens regardless of the disease.
A 24 year old friend of mine died in his sleep with no known cause.
Jim Fixx the guy who told us that jogging would make us immortal died of a heart attack at a fairly young age (52)…… while jogging.
If you run a fever for more than a couple of days you should probably see a doctor. But beyond that, if you think you have the flu, take a couple of aspirins, drink lots of fluids, get lots of rest and avoid hospitals and doctor’s offices -they’re full of sick people.
And if you’re going to panic, please leave the rest of us out of it.
