Flu Thoughts

Mosaic Hussan II Mosque, Casablanca - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

Late one afternoon twenty years ago I felt a chill. It was the first sign of the flu which led to pneumonia, a few nights in the hospital, and a long recovery. So last month when the blankets surrounding my shoulders couldn’t hold in the heat, it meant trouble. An hour later I stepped into my home which was cool but felt Arctic-like. I put on a Marmot 8000 meter parka, turned on the fireplace gas insert, lay on the couch, and piled on the blankets. This was my living room, not the Himalayas, but there was nothing that could make me warm. I thought freezing to death was not supposed to be unpleasant - just close one’s eyes and drift off into an endless sleep. But I shook uncontrollably and fell into a restless slumber only to awaken minutes later with my body temperature seemingly 150 degrees and drenched in sweat. Ripping off the bedding, parka, and all my clothes, and mustering enough strength to stagger to the tile flooring, I lay down until the shakes returned.

Hydration is a mainstay of flu treatment, but even this simple therapy was fraught with misery. My throat was so sore I hallucinated that my wife must have a boyfriend and mixed ground glass with my meals. Every swallow was painful, but if water could keep the Grim Reaper at bay, it was a small price to pay. One glass, a second, and finally a third, and I was back to bed to deal with the chills and night sweats. At last I felt warm and reasonably comfortable, but now my bladder was so full I could no longer ignore it. Six hours ago I could do fifty pushups, but at this stage it was a challenge to shuffle to the toilet. The cycle continued, more hydration followed by repeated trips to the bathroom. My body’s sole purpose was to carry a bursting bladder to the throne every hour.

What is amazing or just frightening is the speed with which the influenza virus subdues its victims and how it confuses the body: fever followed by chills, hunger but no urge to eat, exhaustion despite twenty hours of sleep per day, a racing mind that doesn’t think, and muscles that ache but don’t function. This year’s flu vaccination was not the right match for the influenza virus which visited the Central Valley, so antibodies were not made months ago to defeat the attack. There is nothing to do but wait for the immune system to make antibodies, so the killer T cells can find and destroy the billions of viruses trying to kill me.

Up to 40,000 Americans die of the flu annually, mostly in the extremes of young and old age and those with associated health problems. Each year the sixty-five year old milestone comes closer, a point when risk for bad events climb. A macabre thought occurs, “At what age would this last bout of the flu be too much to handle? When is the margin of error too thin to withstand the illness?” Hard to say, knowing the fickleness of this disease. The flu pandemic of 1918, the worst on record, broke the usual rules and favored the young. It’s best to hedge one’s bets: get a flu shot every year, aggressively treat any signs of impending pneumonia, and hope the birds and pigs in China don’t make a virulent strain of virus which crosses the Pacific and makes an unpleasant week into a fatal one.