Sunday, April 26, 2009

Pandemic issues.

Okay, I know what I am about to write could make me look like a complete nut-job....but I'm gonna write it anyway!!!

I CANNOT handle anymore Pandemic, Swine Flu news flashes. I just can't.... I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe/hypochondriac and I'm pretty sure I've done enough Internet research, on rare but deadly diseases that may or may not be causing my (insert symptoms here) on any given day, to have earned an M.D. with honors!!!
I also CANNOT watch any Armageddon type movies or documentaries. I can't do it. I mean when Al Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth, I was depressed for weeks, thinking I had brought three children into this world just in time to see the end of days. (Maybe I'm just a tad melodramatic too, as is evidenced by my husbands permanent state of eyeroll directed towards me.)

All these little idiosyncrasies about my personality in combination with the fact that I somehow sat through 2.5 hours of "Armageddon week" on the History Channel last weekend and am currently watching every last one of the latest news reports about the swine flu, has me in a state of psychotic frenzy. I keep having to talk myself down off the ledge.
This is happening in Mexico, I mean I can throw a rock from my house and have it land across* the border.
*of course, by "across" I mean approximately 400 miles away from the border, but you get my point.

In an effort to ease my mind I've been doing a little "research" on the 1918 flu pandemic. It is staggering to know that that flu killed 50million people world wide. Keeping it in perspective 500 Million people actually had the flu, which means 450,000,000 people lived through it. Now 10% is a very high death rate for a flu and from what I can tell the deaths were pretty fast, but still 9/10 is still pretty decent odds right? Not to mention the advances in anti-virals and modern medicine ,we may even have a better chance at surviving, right? Please say yes!!!

In all reality we will probably be okay, I know that logically, but the chance that something so totally out of my control could come into my house and take me away from my kids, or vice versa, just makes me C-R-A-Z-Y, and the media just eats this shit up. I keep waiting for some cheesy graphic with the sound effects of doom playing in the background to come up every time they talk about it.
I will try not to panic, I'll try to act (relatively) normal, but I can't promise that I won't stockpile canned goods and attempt to order a bio hazard suit and matching mask ! For now I'll try to be happy overusing my Purell.

4 comments:

Stacey said...

I was waiting for this. I thought for sure you would have said something about it Friday at lunch...I sure wasn't going to bring it up! Just one more reason I having you as a friend...I know that when I get worked up about something, you know just how I feel!

Stacey said...

I meant to say "Just one more reason I LOVE having you as a friend...it is late - sue me.

Angela said...

I have been avoiding the news as well. I'm too high strung to be able to handle it.

m said...

hahahaha I am RIGHT with you. at first, i completely ignored it because of all the bird flu hubbub that happened a couple of years back. now people are talking about it and it's freaking me out. i just can't think about it. it makes me sick to my stomach. and why, WHY would you watch armageddon week stuff? even i know better than that!!