Will H1N1 change your plans?

[ballarinamom]

We don't have enough doses here in San Antonio to go around. We can't get one even if some place had them becuase we do not fall in the priority group.

 

[Eeee-va]

Cleaning commonly-touched room surfaces with Lysol/etc. is very smart! I hadn't thought of that but I'll be doing that for sure. I don't know; hopefully it will be nice and chilly and I'll wear gloves to help keep me from touching stuff in the parks. I do have the "luxury" of not having to fly so I don't have to worry about that aspect, at least.

I wouldn't forget the importance of keeping warm and not wearing yourself down; I think that's almost as important as keeping your hands clean. In June we went and I was the only one in my party who used hand sanitizer consistently, yet I was also the only one to get sick. It very well might have just been a fluke, but I also went out at night without my jacket, figuring I'd be OK...it wasn't horribly cold (though I'm from Arizona, so yes, I was cold!). But I think that being out alone in the cold night air MIGHT be what made me sick, or at least what kept my body from fighting it off as well as it could have. I think I only caught a little cold or something--I wasn't feeling very well the day after and not great the day after that when we went home, and was a touch under the weather for work the next day.

(I would like to get a vaccine so I would be less likely to get sick on vacation and to perhaps offer some protection in case H1N1 mutates, but I'm not in a high-risk group and we don't have many vaccines out here in the first place. If it doesn't become widely available here in the next couple weeks I likely won't go to any effort at all to get it, because it will be too late to protect me for my trip anyway. And I would not want to get vaccinated before everyone in a high-risk group who wanted it, got it.)

Anyway, I sure HOPE that H1N1 doesn't change my plans, because if it does, that would mean that either my friend or I was sick, or even worse, it's gotten significantly worse (as in, a lot closer to 1918 bad).

 

[Surroundedbyboys]

My 14 year old and I are both just now recovering from Swine Flu after being diagnosed on Halloween. I've been to the ER twice since then, the second time blacking out on the way to Urgent Care and ending up in the hospital. For those who don't think it's worse than the regular flu- I have had both and H1N1 was far worse for us. It caused breathing issues in me so bad that I couldn't catch my breath and had to be put on oxygen. I am a 38 year old, very healthy, woman. I exercise daily and eat very healthy foods. My 14 year old was very sick but didn't end up in the hospital- just missed two weeks of school. (He was out a week prior to being diagnosed).

I wouldn't stop going about your regular lives, but I do think it's important to take precautions. My son and I both wore masks at home and we have been cleaning constantly. Luckily my other son and husband didn't catch it.

We just changed our travel plans to Japan this coming spring. We had friends who went there and were put in quarantine for a week because one of them had a fever. When they landed in Japan some officials came on the plane with hand-held devices. Anyone with fevers were put into quarantine. Our friends did not have H1N1 but their trip was ruined for them. We've decided to avoid Asia just for a year until the H1N1 vaccine becomes widely available and we can have proof that we have been vaccinated.

The doc in the ER told us that they're seeing 50 cases a day (in Salem, OR hospital) and she is dreading "when flu season really hits".