Do you get sick? Do you always get a flu shot? Do you stay home when you're sick, or try to work through it? Do you try to put off admitting you're sick for as long as possible, or do you just give in and hope it's over quickly? Are you a big baby, or are you a stoic? And when you're finally really truly sick, how do you amuse yourself until it's over?

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

Answers

I haven't been sick so far this winter, but I always get a major cold at least once every year. London is horribly unhealthy.

I lie around on the sofa, looking pathetic and watching crappy TV until I feel better. I always mean to get a flu shot, but I'm essentially a lazy and disorganised person, so I never quite get round to it.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

I haven't had full-out flu in eleven years. I lived in a single dorm room: no roommate, just obnoxiously loud neighbors who blasted rap 20 hours a day. Also no tv. I turned on the heat in my room (usually I didn't need to), stayed in bed with my bear, sucked down oj, and read trashy magazines delivered by my faithful pals.

Now I would not be so stoic, if trashy magazines count as stoic. I would lie on the couch and watch television and reread The Shell- Seekers for the ninety billionth time. Also now there is the web, so I'd also have a wirelessly networked laptop. But I wouldn't have my bear, as he is too delicate to sleep with. I'd have my other bear or my elephant. You, Beth, probably recover faster with five breathing animals to keep you company.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

I get a flu shot every year (my employer does it for free). I stay home if I'm sick, unless I'm at that stage where it's more boring to stay home. I watch for symptoms all the time and at the first sign, dose myself with echinacea and zinc. I'm a pretty big baby and I take all kinds of over the counter remedies to relieve my symptoms. If I do get really sick, I lie around reading magazines.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

I always get a flu shot. I have asthma, so it's recommended, but the real reason I get it is that I had honest-to-goodness flu one time and never ever ever want it again. The various viruses that you come down with and call 'the flu' are *nothing*. Real flu leaves you on your ass for a week praying for death.

Of course, the flu shot doesn't protect you against those other viruses, so cold season may still suck. I wash my hands obsessively and have had remarkable luck. I think moving to Southern California where you aren't stuck in a sealed bus with lots of coughing people helps too. (Not that people in Southern California don't take buses; a few do. a handful. but mostly, there's no cold weather to prompt sealing these buses like coffins.) When I was 16, I got sick every single month of the winter, but I've scarcely so much as come down with a cold in the past few years. Things have gone around the office and I've evaded them. It's wonderful.

It's particularly wonderful because I can't work for shit when I'm sick. I get nasty sore throats, to the point where I will not speak at all, and I can't do my job if I can't speak. When I have sore throats I am so miserable that I just want to sleep and make the day pass. I couldn't try to work. A sniffly cold I'll tolerate, but a sore throat sends me straight to bed.

I wish my coworkers would stay home when they're sick. I can't stand people who try to tough it out to the point where they're leaving kleenexes on the circulation desk (I work at a library.) Go away. Keep your germs home. Use that sick day.

I am very bad at tolerating illness. I play on the computer, read if I can concentrate (I used to only read Stephen King when I was ill, being unable to stand him at any other time. I have extremely nightmarish recollections of some of his books I read while fevered.)

An illness like an ear infection (102-degree fever, inability to hear on one side, jaw pain so I could hardly eat, swollen face as it progressed to cellulitis) won't upset me, though. It's just sore throats I can't stand. Even runny noses squick me. I feel like everything I've touched while sick is permanently soiled.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

While we're talking about flu shots, here's a question I've been wondering about. I get a flu shot every year simply because I hate being sick. I'm young, generally healthy, and have no specific indicators that I really need one except that I live on a college campus where germs spread amazingly fast. I read somewhere that it's actually not such a good idea to get the shots if you don't need them, the theory being that it's better to get sick while you're young and healthy to build up your immunity. Does anyone know if there's a downside to getting the shots?

Actually, now that I think about it, that argument doesn't make much sense to me. The vaccine exposes you to those specific viruses, right? So you'll always have the antibodies, and whether you actually got sick or not is irrelevant?

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

Wellp. Since we moved to Berkeley .. neither sabs or I has caught so much as a sniffle. Not even on the plane to and from Europe, or to and from the East Coast, which is what knocked us out two years ago. Plane germs.

Knock on wood, the weather here is good for our health.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

The reason they say it's not a good idea to get the flu shot unless you're in a 'high risk' category is because you are taking a risk with the shot itself - it can make you sick and some people react very strongly to it. (The military, which requires all active duty members to get the shot because they consider it an unacceptable risk if one of their assets is sick and unable to perform their mission, is dealing with a number of official complaints by soldiers who believe they are being unnecessarily put at risk in favor of not 'risking the mission')

So, you're weighing your risks... if catching flu would be life threatening because of other factors, get the shot. But if not, you're introducing what may be a higher risk than gambling that you won't get the flu might be.

And sometimes, the shot (which is mixed together based on what they *think* that season's flu strain might be) isn't effective, so you're introducing risk without any benefit.

This year, the vaccine was in short supply, so it was even more important to make sure that you need it, else someone who really does may not have it available to them.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

Judy: there are usually a couple of different flu viruses around every year (the flu virus changes from year to year; you can't get the same one twice), and some of them are milder than others. Some of them are life threatening.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

I thought I had had the flue before, but I was wrong. I got the real flue this year and there was no question of working through it. I just lay in bed for five days marvelling at how the body could shiver and sweat at the same time and trying not to throw up my tea. Drink lots of fluids and smoothies with bannanas, especially if you have been throwing up. I think it has something to do with potasium levels.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

I know the flu virus changes from year to year, and some probably are slightly less hellish to suffer through than others. I still wouldn't want to catch them. They do usually make some comment about the strain they expect to see in a particular winter (thus the one they're making vaccine against) and its severity. They're sometimes wrong, though. But if they are wrong, you're not vaccinated against the unexpected strain that really comes up, so you're kinda screwed. The flu shot isn't 100% effective, either, but given that I have asthma and diabetes and little sick time I figure it's better than doing nothing.

I don't think the flu vaccine is really that risky in any case. You can't get the flu from a killed vaccine. The literature (admittedly written by the people who wish to administer the shot) says that some people may get a slight fever, but that's much less severe than the flu. If you aren't allergic to eggs, a bad reaction is unlikely.

But yeah, if you're without other risk factors, young and healthy, and have a week to spare should you come down with it, it's not necessary in the way that vaccines for measles et al are. It's a matter of personal choice. But I reserve the right to say "I told you so" to anybody who I know personally and encouraged to get the shot who said they didn't want to bother, and then later got the flu and moaned about how awful it was. Like my boyfriend. (Okay, he hasn't gotten the flu yet, and with this year's vaccine shortages it wasn't a matter of taking five minutes to go to a free clinic at work and just get the thing, but if I were him...)

I freely admit that my snobbish superiority is disgusting. Washing your hands is probably more helpful anyway, since it'll protect you from colds and stuff too.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

So, you're weighing your risks... if catching flu would be life threatening because of other factors, get the shot. But if not, you're introducing what may be a higher risk than gambling that you won't get the flu might be.

According to medical experts this is the opposite of the truth. The average risk of dying from the flu shot is less than the average risk of dying from the flu.

Yes, there is currently a big controversy about the military's use of the Anthrax vaccine, but that does not extrapolate to all vaccines.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

For the most disgusting answer I've heard to how to avoid colds -- a guy at a company party last night was very very drunk, and walking from table to table saying that eating your boogers was the trick. He swore it'd worked for him for years. People were cruel, he was so drunk, I couldn't look when someone told him to prove he actually did it. Yucko! Ok, too early and too gross, I know, but the thread was here and it just happened and ... I'll stop now.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

Half the people I work with and most of my friends are now converts to those fizzy vitamin C packets (emergen- C) you get at Whole Foods. They won't help with the flu (I got a shot) but I swear...if you think you are getting sick and start drinking them before you are too far gone it can make your illness not so severe or even make it not happen at all (I took four in a day and spent a day at home and never got really sick). And I like how the tangerine ones taste and buy them by the box now (look in the vitamins). You can get them by the packet at the checkout too.

I have learned in my old age that taking a day or two off early on often circumvents being sick as a dog later on. And when I am really sick, all I can do is watch TV, I cannot even read.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

Shula, i noticed you have a McGill email address. Montreal seems to have been hit worse by the flu this winter than it has in a long time. Almost everyone i know has been sick at some level. I don't usually stay home for a cold, but i stayed home for three days straight (a Thurs, Fri, and Mon which meant i still had to stay home even after having the weekend to recuperate) a few weeks back because i was too sick and weak with a flu strain to even imagine leaving my apartment.

I am a baby when i get sick. I want soup and comfort foods (like meat loaf and mashed potatoes) and back rubs, shoulder rubs, hugs and such. I alternate between going online, reading magazines, and watching tv/videos. Reading books seems to require too much concentration.

I tend to get bored quickly and even though i was a little tired on the Tuesday i came back to work because i couldn't bear one more day of looking at the same bloody walls.

On the other hand i was very excited to see my boyfriend at the end of each day just because you can only have a certain amount of conversation with your cat before you wish you could talk to someone who can actually speak.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2001