Have you noticed that if you get the flu shot, instead of dripping and coughing and puking and feeling like utter garbage for three days but getting over it, you've got prolonged sniffling, clearing of throat and acheyness that drags out over weeks and weeks? As more people get the flu shot every year, I wonder if we'll have hordes of functioning-but-irritated people instead of a good smattering of really sick people who stay home a few days. I'm not sure which is better.
Take me, for instance. I work in a hospital and while I'm not actually administering direct patient care (unless you consider the healing powers of a cheerful smile in the face of serious grumpiness), there are a lot of germs floating around the halls. So I find the flu shot necessary. But I've been feeling generally blah for a few weeks: sniffly, sore-throaty and really really tired. So I take an allergy-fighting med so I can work undisturbed all day, then basically collapse at the end of the night. This is really wreaking havoc on my extra-curricular time. You know, the hours I need to catch up on Spanish/Hindi soap operas and make baby booties.
I guess this is just a rite of passage of winter. But I'm so ready for it to be over. And I could really do without the bloody nose first thing in the morning.
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7 comments:
I am flu-shot free, this and every year. Although I know the first time I get the flu I will be lining up for that shot from that point forward!
I've never gotten a flu shot, and i can't remember the last time i had the flu (knock on wood).
Never had a flu shot and never had a case of the flu bad enough to consider getting the shot.
Trust your immune system - it will work for you.
I get the shot since I read Flu by Gina Kolata.
I'm up in the air on the flu shot given how I felt today after getting one yesterday.
Also, sorry about all the bloody noses. I hear the sniffling and react with a violent, high leg kick. I should wear a brace or something.
all you people who never got the flu: does liver have some kind of crazy flubusting element? because that's pretty much the only thing I don't eat.
trust me, supacoo, madelyn and anon, you don't want to get the flu. i think last year i thought i was going to die at least three times over that week.
sphincter, i'm still pretty scarred from The Hot Zone by Richard Preston to go anywhere near disease-related books.
i'm sorry i make you react so violently, jon. i'll keep the sniffling to a minimum around you.
i got hit the flu (-like symptoms) all the time in college--but i attribute that to the virtual nonsleeping, ramen-based diet and running around outside without a coat. plus the sheer number of other students (some 36,000) while i was there to it.
I've had some really hOrRIble flu in the past. Pain like nothing else, throat on fire.
If I could get a flu shot to avoid catching that kind of flu, I just might take it. Colds I can manage. But the FLU? I mean, the really vicious flu?
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