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Swine flu is everywhere
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There’s no doubt, this flu is an ugly one. But it is also just the flu, NOT some form of highly contagious leprosy.
While we didn’t get her checked, I’m fairly certain my daughter is just now pulling out of a mild case of swine. It’s been a week now and last night was the first time she didn’t wake me up from down the hall from her coughing. For the last seven days, she has dragged herself to and from school – and probably wouldn’t have gone at all except that she wouldn’t have been allowed to play lacrosse had she not gone. (I know, it sounds like her priorities are a bit out-of-wack, but she is a teenager after all and didn’t have a fever.)
One girl who sits next to her in Spanish, was out of school for an entire week fighting a 104 temperature and came back 12 pounds lighter, weighing a scrawny 98 pounds (yikes!). There are also at least one-half dozen that are being excused from finals because they were diagnosed with swine. But the school is staying open and it’s business as usual for most – as it should be.
Certainly, these are the worst cases but there are, from what I can see, an awful lot of kids (and adults) that are sick –perhaps not as sick, but still sick. A fellow writer in her early 50s spent most of the last four days in bed, as did her husband the week before, but she’s pulling through now.
No one wants to get sick, especially in the summer (if it ever stops raining and starts behaving like summer, that is), but I think many people are missing the news reports that keep trying to tell the public that the fatality rate from this flu is really no different than the fatality rate from any other flu. And that those who are succumbing tend to be those with compromised immune systems.
I’m certainly not dismissing the severity of this flu, but it is what it is…and there will be plenty more to come… panicky reactions aren’t going to help.
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