Brief Thoughts On Swine Flu

You have to be pretty well insulated from the rest of the world to have not heard about Swine Flu…over and over and over again.

The word “pandemic” has been bandied about, schools have been shut down, some states have canceled all high school sporting events, Joe Biden is telling people not to get on airplanes—is it possible we’re overreacting a little bit?

For all of the talk and panic, do you realize that, worldwide, only 13 people have died? Now don’t get me wrong, every is valuable, and the deaths of those 13 people are a tragedy, but should we all be freaking out about this considering that the regular version flu (the one that we’re not worried about) kills 20,000 people a year in the United States alone?

It seems to me that, theoretically, this could turn out to be a huge deal, but it will have to get exponentially worse before it is.

Surely that realization will prevent the panic-mongering of the media (and even our VP), right?

When pigs fly.

Sick

I’ve been sick since last Saturday. I finally decided to go to the doctor on Tuesday, who thought I probably had food poisoning and prescribed some antibiotics. So far, they haven’t helped much, but I’m hopeful that they will—I really don’t want to go back to the doctor again.

This makes the third December in a row that I’ve suffered from some sort of stomach ailment. I got sick after eating at Taco Bell two years ago in December, and last December, I had to have an emergency appendectomy.

I’m starting to dislike December.

Back At Home

So I know that things have been pretty lame around The Doc File for the last couple of weeks. Sorry about that—I’ve been out of town quite a bit.

Last weekend I was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to play at an ultimate tournament with a bunch of college friends. We played well, and I had a lot of fun, but I did pull a hamstring in the second game (out of seven) which has been somewhat of an annoyance since.

This past Sunday afternoon, I headed down to the alma mater for the Harding Lectureship, and just returned last night. It was a fun and uplifting time, but unfortunately, I returned sick.

It will be nice to stay home for a few weeks.

Out With The Old Year…

When I look back on 2007, I don’t think of it as a bad year, but in a lot of ways, it was certainly a stressful one, filled with a number of unexpected events.

The unexpected events began in January, when I decided not to pursue Masters Degree in Spanish. This left me somewhat suddenly without direction in life, which, though not an unfamiliar position for me, is certainly an uncomfortable one. The fact that I reached the decision after the long process of getting into graduate school, buying textbooks and starting the semester didn't really help things.

And that was just the beginning. Soon after, Caroline’s great-grandmother passed away somewhat unexpectedly, and we traveled to Alabama for the funeral. A couple months later, we were all very surprised to learn that my grandmother was very sick, which led to two sudden trips to Colorado (once to see her and once for her funeral).

On top of that, factor in two car accidents (I’m really not a bad driver, I promise), two hospital visits, one of which included surgery, and at times, some fairly significant work-related stress, and you get a pretty decent idea of what my 2007 was like.

A lot of good things happened in 2007 as well, and like I said, it wasn’t exactly a bad year, but at the same time, I’m not really sad to see it go.

An Efficient Diet, But I Wouldn’t Recommend It

I’ve lost seven pounds in less than three days.

My weight loss is a by-product of me being sick, so I don’t really recommend this method, but if you’re desperate to lose a few pounds, here’s what you need to do:

1. Acquire some sort of bacterial or viral infection. This will be very important later.
2. Give blood. Not only does giving blood help out people in need in your community, it also removes a pint of liquid from your body and, therefore, decreases your weight.
3. Go home and lay down for a long time. This will prevent you from doing weight-maintaining activities like hydrating and eating.
4. If you do eat, eat late, and avoid healthy foods. Maybe something like Doritos and Cookies n’ Cream ice cream.
5. After eating, spend the next several hours purging absolutely everything from your system. If you followed Step 1 like you were supposed to, you won’t actually have an option on this one.
6. Replace some fluids. You have to have some fluids to survive, so at this point, you might need to go to the Emergency Room and get hooked up to an IV for several hours.
   
7. While in the ER, get rid of even more of your blood. Since you’ve already given blood in Step 2, this might be difficult, and may mean that you have to get stuck over and over again before they can get enough blood from you for tests.
8. When you finally get to come home, spend most of your time sleeping. If you must eat, 2-3 Saltines a day should be more than enough.

Follow these eight easy steps, and you too can lose weight in just three days. For me, the seven pounds was roughly five percent of my body weight, so if you’re bigger than me, you may be able to lose even more! Good luck!

p.s. Did I mention that I don’t recommend this?