Vividly remember a friend telling me a joke when the Swine Flu was emerging from a random case or two to the now pandemic - the joke goes something like, "When a Black man becomes the President of USA, pigs will fly. Sure enough 100 days after Mr. Obama.. Swine Flew" (Don't flame me for the joke as I am a fan of Obama and voted for him too). SWINE Flu and PANdemic probably makes some of you crave for a nice sizzling bacon too... you swines!
All the joking aside, I watch news everyday about the spreading and the shortage of flu shots but it never hit me hard until my boss asked me to travel overseas. As the song goes, you'll never know until it happens to you. So true, I was shaking in my boots. I called my doctor's office a dozen times frantically, the receptionist recognizes my voice and before I say Sw.. she replies with a curt NO.
I was also waking up in the middle of the night, sweating bullets from the routine nightmares of being quarantined in a foreign country and thrown in to a dark dungeon with other unfortunates. I start to ignore the news now as sometimes ignorance is a bliss. Ever heard of the popular idiom, what you don't know, won't hurt you? I am sure some wise men came up with that, you think I can count on them?
Anyway, the days are passing by and I still don't have a clue about the flu shot. Apparently they have issues with production yield, they were projecting 160 million doses and got about one-third of it so far. Obviously, I am neither a 4 yr old, nor a pregnant woman so my chances are on the bottom. I was still annoying my doctor's receptionist about this to the point that she is able to now sense me before I even say something, damn my luck.
I also became a bit philosophic about these diseases. We contracted the Aids virus by creating polio vaccine from monkeys (instead of chimpanzees) and eating monkey meat etc. Swine Flu obviously is not new, it caused a brief panic in 1976 but was well contained. Virus mutates if it's contracted from animals to humans and spreads. AIDS from Monkeys, Mad Cow from meat eating Cows, Bird Flu from Chickens etc. I guess one should go vegetarian? Well remember killer tomatoes & spinach containing Salmonella and E.Coli? TB, Cholera, Ebloa??? I think we are surrounded by many. Unfortunately, medical science is not as advanced as the virus mutation, we are always playing a catch-up game with these.
Finally yesterday I found out that there is a chance of me getting a flu shot if I arrive at a particular time. I almost felt like the angels spoke and I was chosen for this. I told the doctor that I will arrive an hour before the specified time and stay until they close.
Alright, I feel like a million bucks, I got the shot and I am ready to fly anywhere. I went to bed and since the stress was gone, I slept like a baby. Middle of the night, I felt like someone was screaming Swine, Swine followed by a mighty kick in my ass. It was my girl cursing me to get up because all the joy was making me grunt and oink all night which was driving her crazy.
As long as I don't grow a thin kinked tail I should be fine. I do a have an excuse now if I burp or fart in public. Excuse me I just got the Swine Flu Shot...
Disclaimer: It's all fictional on the current event. Read and laugh, send me your funny comments so I can laugh too.
No comments:
Post a Comment