Sunday, February 17, 2008

SICKO

My husband has been sick with the flu. He was sick for, oh at least a week and then started getting over it. Now all of a sudden he has relapsed and sounds worse than ever. Will he go to the doctor? Oh no! He doesn't think he is sick enough. Of course this is someone who just started relapsing Friday afternoon when he took off work early for a meeting with the people who are going to build our new fence. He still denies he needs to go to the doctor all through Saturday, and now Sunday. How convenient that tomorrow is President's day - which he has off. Our granddaughter has been sick with rsv and had to go on nebulizer treatments with albuteral (I have no idea if I'm spelling any of this right.) I have resorted to various things so I won't catch this flu. My daughter told me to change our pillowcases every day, so not only am I doing that, I am also changing our hand towels in our bathroom everyday. I am already a fanatical handwasher. The other night I woke up to hearing him coughing and realized he was facing me. I promptly got up and put my pillow at the end of the bed so he couldn't cough on me. I heard him wake up and look over and say, "Hey, what's going on?" but then he went back to sleep. Hey, it's a sick world out there. Every time I turn around I hear about someone else who has this crud. Twist blogged that he had it. I've managed to escape the flu so far and I'm determined to keep it up.
So here are TEN WAYS TO KEEP FROM GETTING THE CRUD:
1. Wash, wash, wash your hands. Wash with anti-bacterial soap. Use antibacterial hand lotion or the antibacterial gel in between washings. Wash your hands especially after you have been somewhere shopping, or at church where you shook hands with people. See #2.
2. Refuse to shake hands with anyone. Give people peace signs, Hook em' horns, or the Vulcan "live long and prosper sign" instead.
3. Guard your "space". Draw an invisible line around your body and don't let anyone step into it.
4. Take a bottle of Listerine along in your car to gargle, swish and spit several times during the day. Ok, I haven't done this one yet, but I might try it.
5. Use plastic to pay for everything. Money is dirty.
6. Don't pick your nose, eyes, or ears. Use a kleenex for pete's sake. Germs enter your body through these places.
7. Wipe your telephone with a clorox wipe at least every day. Wipe other places that are touched often like computer keyboards, your desk, doorknobs. I read an article the other day that said the normal person's office desk has more germs than a public toliet seat. Gross!
8. Wipe the bottom of your purse also. And never put it on a table or counter where food is served. Think a minute where you put your purse - public bathroom floor, restaurant floor, movie theater floor - Nasty!
9. Like I blogged above - change your pillowcases and hand towels every day during flu season.
10. Take your vitamin C. Be sure to get the chewable, you'll feel like a kid everytime you bite into it.
Ok, maybe these things sound a little OCD, but you'll thank me when you DON'T get sick!

4 comments:

Delirious said...

I agree that these are all really useful things to do during flu season. However, I don't think this is a good practice year round. If you aren't exposed to some germs, you won't develop any immunities. I heard recently of a couple whose little girl was continually sick. They cloroxed her toys every day, so they couldn't understand why she still got sick so often. Her doctor told them to not clean her toys that often, she needed to be exposed to some germs. I do think it is important to be careful during flu season, but lighten up the rest of the year

Dee Ice Hole said...

Airborne is a relatively good source of Vitamin C (you can get it at Wal Mart)--it was developed by a school teacher to avoid the flu---works for me---'course when I am sick alka seltzer plus knocks that too in two days---yeah I am pretty healthy most of the time.

Nene said...

Okay, I'm not this OCD the rest of the year - just right now while everyone around me is sick. And I still haven't gotten it! I don't have the time to clorox everything every day year round!

Native Minnow said...

I thought about this post yesterday when I went to pick my nose shortly after petting a dog. Good save there.