Influenza.

[rivka]

Alex has been sick since Friday night. She's been running a fever and complaining of a headache, pains in her arms and legs, and a sore throat. Flu, in other words. We've kept her home, dosed her up with ibuprofen, and let her watch videos until her brain leaks out her ears.

When the fourth day of fever dawned, I made an appointment with her pediatrician. His reception staff made both of us put on masks (even though I don't have any symptoms) and hustled us into an exam room, bypassing the waiting room. They ordered us to keep the masks on in the exam room too.

When the pediatrician came in, I gave him a rundown of her symptoms and course and then said, "It seems like the flu; I just want to make sure it isn't the flu plus something else."

I thought he was going to cry with relief. Apparently every other parent whose kid has these symptoms has come in totally panicking about the Flupocalypse. He treated me to a perfectly unnecessary disquisition on flu prevention, treatment, and policy.

I asked him about typing the virus, just so we can make an educated decision about whether to have her vaccinated later for whichever kind she doesn't have. He said that the test has lousy specificity so there isn't any point. Based on what's going around, he thinks it's H1N1 and that she'll feel better tonight or tomorrow. If she's not better by the end of the week, I'm supposed to call back.

The incubation period for H1N1 isn't clear, but I'm hoping the rest of us missed out. We all feel more or less okay.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

Personally, I am a firm believer in making the placebo effect work for me whenever possible! In fact, I see absolutely no downside to the placebo effect, and have wished a few times that I could go to my doctor and have her give me a nice sugar pill that I don't know is a sugar pill, because my own belief in its effectiveness would almost certainly fix me right up. (I take vitamins, instead; if I can find people on the Internet suggesting a vitamin that will fix the problem I'm suffering from, very often I find they're right. At the very least, vitamin supplements mostly fall into the 'can't hurt, might help!' category.)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too, all of this.