Yesterday while on campus for a doctors appointment I got my free Influenza shot. Flu shots are new to me. Last year was the first time I'd ever received one. I don't know if they were just less prevalent in the Bay Area. I don't ever remember being offered a free flu shot. I also don't remember shots at Target in California. Maybe they were there, and I was just oblivious to them. Two winters ago I did not receive a shot, and about half through the winter the worst flu I've ever experienced hit me. I was out for a week, mostly unconscious, when not projectile vomiting. I wasn't going to repeat that same mistake and have been quick to get my shots.
Yesterday I was suffering all day of the post-shot flu, cloudy head, but by bed time I was feeling much better. Today I learn that the reason the flu is so common in Minnesota is because it's so damn cold. The NYTimes states:
“Influenza virus is more likely to be transmitted during winter on the way to the subway than in a warm room,” said Peter Palese, a flu researcher who is professor and chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the lead author of the flu study.
We don't have the subway here, and the light rail is nowhere near as warm as the subway, but we do know cold. Although yesterdays grogginess was a discomfort, I'm a big fan of flu shots for all.
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You do know that "influenza", the flu that the shot protects against, is a respiratory illness right? Not the vomiting-stomach-bug that everyone in the world calls the "flu"? So that shot did not at all protect you against what you think is the flu.
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