It’s New Year’s Eve, and we’ve hunkered down at home for the night because my poor sweetheart has the flu. It’s not a cold, not a man cold, it’s the flu. High fever, headache, bad cough, fatigue, aching bones. He’s very weak, and says that even his scalp hurts. His fever is annoying him tonight, as he’s alternating between shivering and sweating.
All this, from a man who pretty much never complains about his health. This is influenza, folks, and it’s not a pretty sight. It’s also not bad enough for us to head to the hospital, where he’d be uncomfortable and likely to spread the germs even further. In any case, there’s not much more a doctor could do for him than what I’m doing.
Trying to keep his fever down, making sure that he takes in enough fluids to avoid dehydration, and that he eats a bit. As long as we can keep his fever down with medications and cold compresses, we’ll stay home.
Which is sad, really, because we both received the flu shot this year; we get vaccinated against the seasonal flu every year because we both have asthma. That puts us at a higher risk of having respiratory complications from the flu. How much higher?
The last time I had influenza, many years ago now, I ended up in the hospital – with pneumonia in both lungs. That really wasn’t much fun, as you can imagine!
Vaccination for seasonal influenza isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than not getting vaccinated. Someone else we know caught the flu at about the same time as my husband, and she’s doing much worse. She didn’t get the flu shot this year, so we suspect that my husband’s vaccination has resulted in him having slightly less severe symptoms.
I’ve been making him chicken soup, tea, and cold compresses for a few days now, hoping that his fever will break soon. And I’ve been using my grandma’s old recipe for Scottish cough syrup, which involves (cheap) scotch whisky, honey, and boiling hot water ‘-) If nothing else, this concoction helps him sleep through his coughing!
My husband feels horrible that, because I could be contagious before showing any symptoms, we’ve had to cancel all of our holiday plans this year. I keep telling him that I don’t mind, that he’s more important to me than anyone else we know. He really is!
What have I been doing, while we’ve been housebound over the holidays? Wiping down every surface that he touches, with alcohol swabs! I even inadvertently took the finish off our espresso maker, when I wiped it down after he coughed near it… My over-zealous cleaning seems to be working, because – so far – I haven’t caught the flu.
That’s really surprising, given that we’ve been at home together since December 21 with all the windows closed. I’ll let you know next week – next year! – whether I manage to avoid catching influenza from my sick sweetheart.
In the meantime, I wish you and your loved ones the very best of health for 2019. And no influenza! Even if you struggle with chronic pain, with a rare disease, as I do with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), my wish is that your health be as good as it can be next year.
And I’m adding to that a wish for your New Year to be filled with moments of happiness, kindness, laughter, and love.
Kindness, most of all!
Happy New Year…
