WAT

[werewolf_lib]

Okay. . .so I'm sick, as I've have been for some time now. With a dreadful cough, among other things. That I caught from a friend's kid. And now on the evening news, there's a story about several reported cases of whooping cough in our local school systems. Whooping cough. Whooping cough. You've got to be fucking kidding. There's no way this could

Comments

[brienze]

Go to a doctor, if at all possible. I had whooping cough as a kid, even though I'd been vaccinated. I don't remember the details of what medication I had to take for how long, but I think maybe it's just a long course of antibiotics.

[werewolf_lib]

I don't have a fever and my friend's kid's diagnosis was not whooping cough, so I think I'm in the clear. More a case of Crappy Premature Infant Lungs than anything awesomely pioneer-like, alas. If I do get a fever, though, to the hospital I go!

[inkgeist]

Whats with all the Victorian diseases making a come-back? I say go to the doctor/emergency/urgent care place just to be safe.

Not being a doctor or even an organic chemist, I don't know why this worked but: the missus mixed a 1/4 cup bourbon, 1/8 c lemon juice and honey in a pot, threw cloves and some ginger in it, and heated it for a couple of minutes. I slept for 12 hours and was totally better later.

[werewolf_lib]

My mother used to make something like that for me! She started to leave out most of the whisky after the time I power-vommed on the carpet, though.

If you ask me, it's the curious-but-not-fatal 19th century first course of illnesses brought to us by people who refuse to vaccinate their kids -- I'm convinced of it. After this comes the scarlet fever and then the plague. Keep out a watch for rats!

[inkgeist]

Ew! Those things are vile - the rodents I mean. Seeing one turns my stomach for a whole day, so naturally the missus takes precautions against such incidents and all is well.

Vaccination is somthing I know next to nothing about - living close to Berkeley I've heard all sides (conspiracies, mercury, ethics, risk of crazy preventable diseases "omg wont some one think of the children!") and have yet to look into it myself. Being a chemist I'm going to blame all this nonsense on weakened immune systems from all the crap we subject ourselves to, the mutation of said disease strains and most importantly: crap health care.

I'm sooooo not down with scarlet fever... All the more reason for me to do well in organic chemistry...

[werewolf_lib]

Crap health care is indeed a driving force, and the rise in accurate diagnostic tools combined with an expanded definition of the term are more than likely what's behind the 'rise' in autism. It's like if people with hazel eyes had been lumped in with brown-eyed people instead of green-eyed people and then science discovered that they actually belonged with green-eyed people. The way we re-classify them has created an increase in their numbers without requiring an actual increase in that trait in the population. Does that make sense? I was up until 2 in the morning playing a Harry Potter trivia game with an eight-year-old. She did pretty well, too!

[lectrix_lecti]

My dad refused to vaccinate me (he did make an exception for polio). The ONLY thing I caught as a child was the whooping cough, but ask me how long I had it. Go on, ask me. Better yet, ask my mum how long she and dad spent every night awake trying to keep me semi-alive.

Two months.

Eight fucking weeks.

And that was two months spent coughing until I puked every. Single. Night. I forget how many times I nearly choked on my own vomit. Also, it was two months of gobbling down humongous nasty penicilin pills.

[werewolf_lib]

That's terrible! You must have suffered so much; I remember the frequent bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis I would get and they were awful, but not nearly as bad as that. And your poor parents, being unable to make it stop for you.

My mother is the 'take a Tylenol and tough it out' type, having a slight paranoia about hospitals, and I remember clearly being about three years old and having a very high fever and my mother was panicking about it. I was absolutely sure I was going to die since she never got nervous when I was sick!

[lectrix_lecti]

Two months of the whooping cough isn't unheard of for un-vaccinated kids. If you're vaccinated and catch it, two weeks seem to be pretty standard. It's a nasty disease. I remember being sooooo tired all the time, the coughing wore me (and my parents) completely out.

So get yourself to a doctor, if you get a fever or start a-wheezing.

[werewolf_lib]

Fever is usually my 'seek medical attention' point, because bad things tend to happen after that starts up. Fevers, and anything involving blood -- those are my warning signs.