Influenza

Unfortunately I have the flu.  I hesitate to call it the flu because it is just such a small benign little word and the flu is anything but small and benign.  I will call it “influenza”, its full name from now on.  It deserves that kind of respect.  It can bring a grown person to their knees.  In a matter of just a few hours I felt like I had wrestled a lion and lost.  My joints felt like a bite had been taken from every stinking one of them, heck I couldn’t even comfortably use my hands.  Standing up was a major chore!  MY HEAD, oh my gosh, to touch a hair was painful, holding it up was painful, keeping by eyes open was painful.  My gut, my kidneys nearly died, I don’t have friendly kidneys normally anyway so they really had something to say about having a visit with influenza.  I got up about 5:00am and my Noon I was ready for death.  I knew I was in trouble.  I was babysitting my 3 month old granddaughter and my 4 year old grandson.  The grandson said, “grammy, I love you but you don’t look good”.  No kidding!

Thankfully Both parents safely picked up their children and I have been praying that neither gets the flu ever since.

Remember how I cannot drive right?  I say that nearly every day as it is a source of extreme irritation.  I could not take myself to the doctor so I had to wait for my husband to get off from work so he could drop me off at the doc-in-the-box which he did.  After the visit, swabs up my nose, peeing in a cup and blood being drawn, I was told I had the “flu” that little tiny cute word.  So they gave me Tamiflu for the flu and something for my poor weak kidneys and Zofran for my tummy.

Being as old as I am, and as delirious with the fever as I am when they gave me the Tamiflu I thought of the old “Tammy” movies.  These were such great little sappy movies.  This cute, innocent, cutsy, perky, peppy girly girl was in these movies and Tammy was always “in love”.  The song was, “Tammy, Tammy Tammy’s in love” I can hear it in my head.  Anyway, when they gave me the prescription for the Tamiflu the old Tammy movies came into my head.  I thought about how Tamiflu was probably going to be much like Tammy, dainty, perky, silly and innocent but boy was I wrong.  I took my first dose last night and by this morning my 102 fever had broken and I woke up in a puddle of sweat and my joints felt near normal.  I think I could be in love with Tamiflu.  My fever has gone up and down all day but not back up to 102 and although I am feeling bad I can tell I will live which is more than I can say than yesterday.

By the way I did take the flu shot, I always do.  I have wimpy kidneys and a few other wimpy body parts that wouldn’t appreciate influenza much so I do try to stay away from it.  I haven’t had influenza in so many years I cannot even remember when.  The shots have worked in all the years past, just not this year, but Tamiflu sure does.  Man I love that stuff.