This morning, as I was lying in bed, Sasha came toddling along the floor toward me. As I reached out my hand to rub her head, Jean suddenly cut in:
“Don’t do that—you’re sick!”
Yes, it’s true: I have the flu, though whether it’s the porcine variety or some other vengeful animal’s, I don’t know. The worst part of it is not the coughing, or the sneezing, or the bodywide aches, or the cold shivering sweats, but the simple fact that I have to stay away from my daughter. When you’re feeling miserable, there’s nothing you want more than to cuddle something soft and sweet and full of energy and life.
But you can’t. Because you might, like, kill the kid.
This is actually the second time this has happened. Last time around, about six months ago, I got shingles, and when I realized what was going on I knew I couldn’t touch Sasha until it was over. There’s nothing worse.
Of course, I survived, and so did she (with only an extra-mild case of molluscum), and this time around, she’ll be okay, too, particularly since she’s had one of those handy-dandy swine-flu vaccines (or at least the first, 80-percent-effective round).
But there she is at my bedside again, screeching for me to pick her up—screeching! Do I…?
DON’T!!!!!!!
Meh. Help her to build up those immunities … infect her then give her plenty of rest and liquids. If she gets a fever, turn the heat in your apartment up to 20 degrees C (68-70F) and dress her in light pjs. Don’t bundle her … let the heat of the apartment and her natural body thermostat work together.
My three have had H1N1 and, while miserable, this is what we followed religiously from the first bodyache sniffle. When my three had H1N1 (confirmed), the one that got over it first was the one who had a good high fever (40C, or 104F). The one who got over it the slowest, never hit higher than 38.5C (101.3F).
H1N1 aside, my eldest had the most colds of the three of them for the first year of her life. While brutal at the time, she definitely picks up less viruses now, and gets over things way faster than the other two.
Regardless, feel better soon!
My brother got infected with H1N1 or Swine Flu in Mexico. He got a mild fever and luckily he did not die.
If you look at the pandemic of 1977, when H1N1 or Swine Flu re-emerged after a 20 year absence, there is no shift in age-related mortality pattern. The 1977 “pandemic” is, of course, not considered a true pandemic by experts today, for reasons that are not entierely consistent. It certainly was an antigenic shift and not an antigenic drift. As far as I have been able to follow the current events, the most significant factor seems to have been that most people, who were severely affected, were people with other medical conditions.
2 of my cousins in mexico got infected with the swine flu virus. thank God, they recovered well. it is a great news that the pandemic on swine flu is gone now.