One Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and it was made pretty darn clear to me recently that it is cold and flu season.

Ever since my wife Terry was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, I have been what is called a ‘caregiver.’  That name took on a whole new meaning recently when I had to care for Terry once she caught the flu.

There is one thing you have to understand. Terry does not get sick. The last time she vomited was when she was pregnant with our now 26-year old. Even about 20 years ago when we both got food poisoning from eating Reuben sandwiches at a diner, I was sick as a dog and she had a little more than a stomach ache.

That’s not normal.  But, luckily for me, I rarely have to take care of a sick spouse.

Terry, on the other hand, has had to nurse me through quite a few illnesses over the years, although she shows absolutely no sympathy when it comes to hangovers. Fortunately, there have not been that many of them.

Last week I was coming home from a road trip, a rare trip that Terry’s schedule did not allow her to accompany me, and I felt a cold coming on. By the time the three hour drive home was over, I was sick. Could not stop coughing.

The cough slowly worked its way up into my head and a full-blown cold was in place.

I tried to stay away from Terry as much as I could, so I spent the first couple nights in the living room on the couch. Notice I didn’t say I slept on the couch. I wish!  That was the worst part of the sickness, not being able to sleep. My breathing was labored, with a wheezing element to it, which kept me awake at night. The one thing I really needed, sleep, I was not getting.

After the third day I developed a fever.  That’s when I knew that the flu that a lot of people at work had and that I was able to avoid, had finally caught up to me and bit me in the butt. I really knew I was sick when a couple of beers went untouched for over a week in my refrigerator.

Although sick, there were three days out of four that I HAD to go to work, at least for a half of the day, and that, along with not getting much sleep, allowed the flu to linger. It was a solid week before there was any sign of it letting up.

And even though I had done my best to stay away from Terry, she eventually began coughing and became bed-ridden.

Fortunately I have great kids, so when I had to work several evenings my kids took care of Terry. Making and feeding her soup, buying her meds and liquids.  Waiting on her. They have much better bed-side manners than I do.

I often tell Terry that she is ‘one gross girl’ as I clean up her used tissues and help her change her clothes. I say it with a smile and it makes her laugh.

Thank God Terry has such a good disposition in life. It takes a lot to bother her. Maybe that is why we’ve lasted so long as a couple.

So now she is getting plenty of rest, she is drinking plenty of fluids and she is taking flu medicine.

About 10 years ago flu shots became popular. I got one, and a day or two later I developed a bad cold.  The following year I got another flu shot and, sure enough, I got another cold. So that was the last time I got a flu shot. To me it wasn’t worth it.

With my latest experience with the flu, I’m thinking getting a shot might be worth it. I think I will get a shot next year. The cold it may or may not have given me was much better than what I’ve been through the last two weeks.

But just last month the CDC warned that this year’s flu vaccine may not be effective against all strains of the flu virus.  Medical tests have shown a “mutated” strain of influenza not covered in the vaccine.

Influenza. That just sounds bad. Like Polio. Or anything that ends in pox.

Those shots are recommended by WHO (World Health Organization, not Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend).

But recently I read that more than three-quarters of Americans who got this season’s flu shot could get the flu virus anyway, according to U.S. officials, given a mismatch between the flu strains covered by the shot and those actually causing illness in people.

So the shot this year is only 23 percent effective overall. Since they’ve been doing studies on the flu shots 10 years ago overall effectiveness of the shots have ranged from 10 percent to 60 percent.

Get that shot back up to 60 percent next year and I’m in. If 60 percent was good enough for me when I was taking tests in school, than it is good enough for a flu shot.

Especially since this year, when the shots are not even hitting their own weight (baseball term).

Until next time, hope you don’t get the flu.

Bud