When I went to the doctor’s office the other day, I got there early — before they even opened the doors. I was parked in a space right in front, beside a man and woman in their SUV. They were both smoking cigarettes while waiting. That scene made me chuckle — I bet they weren’t there to be checked for lung cancer. (I’m easily entertained.)

Once the clinic staff opened the front doors, eight people went in immediately. Only one other person there looked sick, and boy howdy was she pathetic. She was probably between 18 and 25 years old — it was hard to tell, as she was bundled up pretty fully — and another, older woman was with her (her mother, perhaps). This poor girl was just eat up with something terrible. Her eyeballs were red, her eye sockets were black, and her face was pale. She was shivering, she was coughing, and at one point she started crying. The crying is the only thing that convinced me she wasn’t a zombie.

I felt sick, but she seemed to be absolutely beyond ill. When they called her name, she could only slowly get up out of the chair and shuffle to the office door. Her mother (I’m going with that assumption) helped her like she’d help a 90-year-old woman. I was real sorry for that young woman — whatever she was going through was far worse than the little thing I was feeling.

But the situation also made me wonder just how safe is going to a doctor’s office — I sure as hell wouldn’t want to catch that while waiting in the lobby. I could almost feel the germs radiating off her like neutrons off of plutonium.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’m using my “Don’t Have To Post Today” pass. The flu sucks. (See yesterday’s update if you read the post before about 10:00 am.)

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Well it seems that I managed to make it through the flu invasion of our home without contracting the bug, myself. I’m amazed; shocked, even. This episode turned out considerably milder than I expected, apparently thanks to the previously-received flu shots and timely prescription of Tamiflu.

An interesting thing about illness and children is that when they’re on medication, like Motrin to reduce fever, you’d never know they were sick. When the Motrin is in full effect, the kids talk, play, and do everything they’d normally do. But when the Motrin wears off, and the fever comes back, they are the most pathetic things you’ve ever seen. And when you have more than one kid ill at the same time, you must keep them on the same medication schedule. You don’t want to have one coming down while the other is going up.

In our case, Calfgrit7 started showing symptoms Thursday night. We took him to the doctor Friday noon. The doc gave us the prescription for Tamiflu for both boys — to reduce Calfgrit7’s symptoms, and to help prevent Calfgrit3 from getting any symptoms. As we were about to give them their first dose of the med Friday afternoon, Calfgrit3 had a fever of 102 degrees. As it turned out, Calfgrit7 had the most severe symptoms in the family, but the illness came and went relatively fast. Calfgrit3 had very mild symptoms, and they went away quickly.

Cowgrit had been stoically suffering for a couple days — she thought it was just a bad cold — and her doc said Tamiflu wouldn’t help someone who was already so far into the flu. So she had longer suffering, and it was worse than Calfgrit3, but not quite as bad as how Calfgrit7 suffered at his worst.

And then there was me. I washed my hands so many times a day I probably lost three layers of skin. I wouldn’t let Cowgrit touch me at all until yesterday — I had to keep a sterile field around me unless contact was absolutely necessary. I slept either on the guest bed or the sofa for three nights. Cowgrit commented that the next logical step would be for me to carry a can of Lysol and spray everyone who got close to me.

When you see three people suffering from a nasty illness, and you know that if you get it, it will probably strike you harder (because of no flu shot), it’ll bring out the religion in you. “Please, God, don’t let me catch this.” I’ll hug and kiss and love up on my family tomorrow to make up for the “helping at arm’s length” of this past weekend.

* * * updated * * *

Dammit, dammit, dammit! Within a couple hours of posting the above, I went down hill like a rollercoaster. I started feeling a little bad and discovered I had a fever. I immediately went to the local clinic (no time to wait for an appointment time with my regular doctor) to get checked out. The doc prescribed me Tamiflu, and if it works as well for me as it did for my boys, I should be better in a couple days. Right now, I feel like crap.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

This race seemed to have fewer wrecks than other Daytona races I’ve watched in the past few years. And the wrecks there were had fewer cars involved, and less damage. That’s a good thing.

Although many people watch NASCAR to see spectacular wrecks, and I’ll admit to being interested in seeing them, too, a race is much more exciting when more of the top drivers make it all the way through to the end. Having two dozen top drivers battling it out in the last 20 laps is much more fun than having just 10 or 12 top drivers fighting at the end.

This was a good Daytona race even though the last 20 laps were packed with caution flags. They’d get a few laps in, the tension would be building, the jockeying for position would be set up, and then bam, someone would scrape the wall or spin off the track and everyone had to slow up for the caution flag.

Only a few of the top drivers fell out in wrecks, and the last few laps were some of the most exciting racing I’ve seen. Granted, Daytona is the only race I regularly watch (like the Super Bowl is the only football game I regularly watch). But still, this was a good race.

I almost feel sorry for Jeff Burton. He was leading at that final restart, and looked like he was going to take it to the finish. But then the two trains lined up on either side of him, and he got passed on both the left and right by a dozen cars. That has to hurt to go from 1st to 13th within 6 seconds without a wreck on the track.

And I bet Tony Stewart is mad as hell for dropping from in front of Ryan Newman down to block Kyle Busch. That opened the door wide for Newman to take it all.

Good race. Would have been better if there had been fewer yellow flags in the last laps, but still, it was exciting.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com