I'm sick of being sick

[mithriltabby]

I started getting symptoms of a sore throat late Saturday night. I slept through most of Sunday and Monday. By then, the major fever was over with... but it has since moved into a nice cough and low fever instead. Kind of a “tour of the symptoms” flu. Fortunately, my employer allows working from home while ill, so I’m not forced to burn precious PTO.

Is it just my faulty memory, or are modern flus much worse than they were when we were young? I blame air travel: with people zooming all over the planet, we’re brought the most virulent flus from around the world, and those are the ones that get to mutate in a globally distributed population.

We need to bring back the dirigible. Sure, it takes longer to get from place to place, but adding extra elbow room on one is trivial— it’s mass that matters on one, not size. You could have spacious lounges, comfy seats, even private rooms, and all the connectivity you need to get work done while in transit from one place to another, without the discomfort of plane travel.

And you have room for partitioning, and you can put air filters on the circulation between partitions. People who have caught something in their foreign destination will start to show symptoms while in transit, rather than quietly spreading germs to an entire aircraft via recirculated air, and the crew can start damage control before the vehicle lands.

Maybe if we point out how this would be a stumbling block for bioterror, we can get the rabid paranoids to back this initiative as part of the War on Terror!

Comments

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

Sorry you're feeling so down. Last Friday I stayed home to kick something similar, as did at least two of my friends. I feel like it was a near thing that I *did* kick it, and I'm not looking forward to the next wave. And my work is doing flu shots either 4 days before or 4 days after my wedding, and I'm thinking, "How much of a crap shoot is that?"...

[rhylar.livejournal.com]

I think that a) they're getting more virulent, and b) they are spreading faster over a larger area, but also c) we're more exposed. Me, I'm facing people on a daily basis who have just arrived in the state. When I was a kid, only my parents & other parents in the neighborhood faced that exposure. Me & the other kids were only targeted when one of our parents got sick.

I also don't like the constant drive for ultra-clean environments. We limit our exposure to diseases that would only bounce off our immunities (giving them much needed exercise), so when we do fight a real disease, our wheezing, potbellied white blood cells are easily overmatched.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Zepps, and airships in general are the Cool Thing. I remember way way back when we used to take family trips to Costa Mesa to visit the grandparents, the highlight of the trip was passing by the field where the Goodyear blimp was stored. even now I can come close to causing an accident if I sight a blimp while driving. I would be really, really happy if they could find some way to make zepplins economical again.

As for the flu being worse, probably not- though we're overdue for another global pandemic ala the Spanish flu. That's why the CDC and other organizations are looking at China very, very nervously.

Just to make you feel better while you're sick. ;'/