Ella is starting to really talk. It seems like I just noticed it today when she said “A doo doo dah juice.” Meaning, “I would like to hold the juice, please.” She was really trying to make a sentence, though. And as we drove off, she was saying “Hiiiii. Byyyye.” sooo clearly, in a different, bigger-girl voice. Something was just more grown up about her today...and yes, it happened that quick. Overnight. She has been having a difficult time sleeping the last few weeks. I’ve been attributing that to her new walking skills, as I’ve been told several times to expect sleep problems around this time. Apparently, as they are on the brink of independence, they want to practice every minute of the day and night. Hence, why she woke me up at 5 am grabbing my finger with all her strength (which means, “Let’s walk...NOW.” This morning, we woke up at 6 am, not too bad, except I woke up sick. Anyway, as I laid her in the bed next to me due to my extreme fatigue, I couldn’t quit coughing. Every time I would cough, her little hand would reach over and rub my arm. It was truly the sweetest thing ever. That should just be the theme for the last few weeks...sweetness. Even in the midst of the dawning “terrible twos,” which actually truly begins when they start to walk. She can be a drama queen, flailing herself on the ground with a scream when you take your finger away from her, encouraging her to walk on her own. She also likes to smirk at you when you tell her “no” in your most serious tone you can build up. Oh well, one day hopefully she will catch on.
She is a very verbal little girl. She can say several words and understands just about everything you say. She’s definitely following simple commands and is soooo much fun. Of course, it helps that she will now give kisses and hugs too.
Back to me being sick. It reminds of the ubiquitous H1N1 flu going around right now. We have seen a ton of cases in the office this month, so I decided to write a little something about it. I think there is a lot of misinformation and a lot of confusing things about this flu pandemic issue. So here’s my two cents. Maybe it will give you some new info, too.
So, influenza is a virus. Humans have DNA in all of our cells to tell them what to do. The flu virus has RNA which tells it what to do. This RNA code more or less tells the flu virus what “keys” to display in order to unlock doors into our body’s cells. If one of the individual units in the RNA code changes, the key on the flu virus changes a little. This is why we need a new vaccine every year. Scientists project into the future, guessing which flu virus will be predominant in the next season and they put these strains into the vaccine for that year. Sometimes they get the right ones, sometimes they miss them, which is why the vaccine works sometimes or doesn’t work. Even though it changes every year, it is still usually close enough to previous strains that our bodies are a little prepared for them and can fight it off fairly successfully. Every now and then the “keys” change so much that our bodies are caught “off guard” and this can lead to more deaths and more serious illness than normal.
So what’s with “avian” and “swine”? Well, the flu infects these animals also. In other words, the keys on the flu viruses fit the locks on their respiratory cells also. In fact, many more flu viruses enter their bodies than ours. However, you can’t always see signs of illness in these animals. Every now and then, a flu virus gets into a bird or pig body with another flu virus and they exchange information, creating a new baby virus. If it happens to be a virus that can enter the human body, we get a new flu strain.
Thus, the recent Avian Flu (H5N1) was a strain created from birds, eventually obtaining properties that allowed it to enter into humans. Fortunately, it never obtained properties to allow easy transfer between humans, although when it did infect, it was deadly.
So what about H1N1, swine flu? The scary thing about swine is they have the SAME type of airway receptors as us. Birds do not, which is why it is a little harder for birds to “incubate” a new virus that will be transferable among humans. However, when a new virus from a bird enters a pig and other viruses in the pig combine with those, a brand new flu virus with keys that can fit HUMAN locks is created. IF this virus were to have the properties like the avian flu (deadly) combined with properties from swine flu (very contagious to humans), then THAT could be BAD. Has anyone seen the movie Outbreak? The Spanish Flu of 1918 - 1919 was like this. It killed 50 million people around the world...500,000 in the U.S. The “regular” seasonal flu (with only minor “key” changes) kills approximately 36,000 / year in the U.S., for a comparison.
Although the swine flu has proven to be very contagious (thus, 15-20+ positive flu A’s in our office every day for the past month), it has so far not proven to be VERY deadly. Although, 18 children have died already in the U.S...which is plenty. We are NOT out of danger, though. At any time, a new Spanish flu pandemic could emerge OR the swine flu could undergo minor changes to make it more deadly. In fact, the Spanish flu began much like the swine flu. Contagious, but not too deadly. However, a few months later, it re-emerged deadly.
But it’s not ALL depressing. Although this is likely to happen again, we can learn from the past. Certain U.S. cities decreased deaths to less than half the rate of other cities due only to quarantines...Banned church meetings, school, any meetings at all, and blocked roads into town. The cities that did not do this at all had the highest death rates. Also, they did not have a vaccine...we are LUCKY.
Anyway, hopefully this can help you see why it is important to get your vaccine while it’s readily available...just in case. You are not getting the shot primarily to protect you from enduring the discomforts of the flu, but to prevent the more serious problems that may occur and lead to hospitalization and death. Perhaps most importantly, you are getting the shot to prevent yourself from spreading the virus to those at highest risk: elderly and the very young / sick. Their immune systems may not be strong enough to respond to the vaccine adequately or they may be too sick or too young to get the vaccine in the first place. (You have to be over 6 months old). AND new strains of the flu, like swine and avian flu, tend to target the young and strong (those in their 20s-50s included) rather than older people. It’s speculated that this is because older people have had a longer time to come in contact with several different types of flu viruses, giving them more varied protection.
Ok, I hope you are not too bored or freaked out now. I just thought it would be helpful to know a little more about this since it is a “hot topic” right now. Forgive me if you already know all this, but I have noticed that people are not terribly informed as I have been in conversations lately.
After all, who sits around reading about this stuff anyway? Not me!
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