“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.”
William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997)

 

All the talk about swine flu and how bad it is to contract if you’re pregnant is making me paranoid.  Noah’s stayed home from work yesterday and today due to a head cold.  I have quizzed him multiple times on his symptoms, cross-referenced them with the CDC website, and made him take his temperature repeatedly.  All signs point to the common cold.  As a precaution, he has taken up sleeping downstairs (this is also due to the fact he didn’t want to get woken up at 6am when I start to get ready for work).  Also finding out last night that a girl I went to school with died from H1N1 (at the age of 28!) did not help.

 

I read this article online earlier today, which helped to reduce my paranoia…some.  But I work at a germ-factory (aka school) and learned today that our staff and students are dropping like flies.  Two staff and one child of a staff-member in my building have/had H1N1.  At least one student in another building has it (one of the three in that class that were sent home yesterday with fevers) and another staff in yet another building also has the virus.  Several other students have been sent home with fevers, I have not heard if they are H1N1 related.

 

My doctor has recommended I get both the regular flu and H1N1 vaccine.  My plan is to get the regular flu shot this weekend and then, when my doctor’s office gets a supply of H1N1 shots in, I’ll get that one too (sometime this month, but might not be until my appointment on the 30th).  All the paranoia did encourage me to call my doctor’s office  today and listen to the recording about flu vaccines — they don’t have H1N1 yet, which is what I expected.  So I’ll continue to wait, pray for health, wash my hands, use lots of antibacterial gel and disinfect my office doorknobs daily (mental note: buy more wipes so I don’t poison myself with CaviCide)…and try not to feed into the paranoia.