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Strollerderby
I’ve never been a fan of perfect attendance awards. I realize that might not be a popular opinion, but it seems like they reward one of two things: 1) Good luck, or 2) Presenteeism. Either kids are exceedingly lucky and never get sick on a school day, or they do get sick and come to school anyway, spreading germs to everyone else.
It’s a mixed message, one that is sort of blindly accepted in a normal school year. But swine flu is changing the rules this fall, and it has school administrators rethinking their perfect attendance awards.
One of the problems in trying to figure out exactly how serious swine flu is is the fact that the CDC stopped counting cases early on in the pandemic.
Six months in, however, they think they have some pretty reasonable estimates about what’s happened so far. And while swine flu has definitely not proven to be the big killer everyone feared, there’s no doubt that this flu season is serious.
When I asked our kids’ pediatrician about the swine flu vaccine, he said that it was up to us, but that he wasn’t getting it. That’s telling, given that we figure he’s about 90 years old — he was my wife’s pediatrician too — and is thus a prime candidate. He said felt that the government and the media had made more of the disease than was appropriate. Given that he’s been practicing for more than 50 years, I tend to listen when he says something. But lest you think he’s been practicing a little too long, he is not alone in his assessment of the situation.
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You might have heard by now that some families are deliberately exposing their kids to H1N1 in the hopes of building up an immunity to the virus while it is in a relatively mild form and few people are dying from it.
That’s not necessarily as crazy as it sounds. In the days before the chicken pox vaccine, chicken pox parties were a good way to ensure that your child got chicken pox before she or he outgrew the window where it’s a relatively minor illness. Chicken pox in adults is serious, and the only immunity to be had was through suffering it out as a kid.
Swine flu is another matter. A relatively new illness that could be mutating fast, swine flu is not something we all have to go through, and it is known to be dangerous. Continue reading »
Pregnant and still not convinced you should get a flu shot? Three new studies might just help you make up your mind. Here are the findings of each:
Although the swine flu may very well be a popular costume this year, that’s the only kind you want to let in your door. To help prevent the other kind — the contagious, potentially serious kind — from replacing tummyaches as the aftermath of Halloween trick-or-treating, experts are offering some tips for staying safe and healthy this year. Naturally, if you or your kids are not feeling well, you probably want to stay home and not pass out candy — you don’t want to pass out germs along with the goodies.
It started with a sore throat, a “burning hot” sore throat, my daughter called it. That’s when I knew we were probably in trouble. H1N1 is spiking in our state with over 200 school closings last week alone.
That was 4 p.m Thursday. By bedtime, her fever was 101.5. That’s when I had to break it to her that she’d miss Friday’s field trip. At that point, the disappointment was worse than the flu.
By Friday morning, she no longer cared. She was sick. Here’s our experience with the swine flu:
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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