A Public Service Announcement

OK, I will admit right off the bat I do not function well when I’m sick. This is apparently common to the male species, at least according to most females. I don’t get sick very often but usually I take a couple aspirin, drink a bunch of orange juice, take a nap and just work through it. No big deal, right!

In my younger years I would get a nasty case of strep throat every few years whether I needed it or not. This was a fairly predictable deal, so much so my Doctor had me keep a supply of antibiotics on hand so when I felt it come on I could start treating it right away. It was one of those things that I would be fine one minute then down for the count the next.

I could literally stand up and by the time I walked across the room I would have a massive high fever, my head was ready to explode and every time I tried to swallow it felt like a grenade just went off. I sounded like Rod Stewart after gargling with razor blades. It would last a few days then I was back to normal. Not fun at all but I knew what to expect.

I tell you that to explain that I had never had what we know as the flu before. Never! That is until a couple of weeks ago. I can’t say it was on my bucket list of things to accomplish but now that I have had it I can take it off the list, permanently thank you.

Here again, I felt fine then I wasn’t. I started to get up for work and fell back in bed and for the most part did not get up for 7 days. I tried just about every cough drop, over the counter medicine and gallons of juice trying to make a difference. It really didn’t. I couldn’t sleep due to coughing so much.

They tell you that you only have two lungs, I not sure if that’s really the case because I feel like I coughed up at least a dozen. In my case the flu went directly to my chest as bronchial pneumonia. Once I started on the antibiotics things started to get better and was finally able to get some sleep. A few days later I was starting to function as a human again, as close as I get.

I seemed to have lost about 9 days (at least) from work, family and really any sense as to what was going on anywhere. Needless to say, it was not fun.

This is really not anything you want to mess with. Take whatever precaution you can and make sure you get plenty of sleep, eat right and stay as far away from this thing as possible. This concludes my public service announcement for today, thank you.

More later