Swine Flu??

I can't tell you that I'm taking this whole Swine Flu pandemic easily. Though I have no children in school and that decreases the risk, its still makes me extremely nervous.

At first glance, I could have sworn that the Swine Flu was transmitted by eating pork and I damn near went through the roof!! Hubby's a butcher, one would think that would be a huge increase in a chance of contracting it! Thank God that I re-read and read and re-read a million articles cause that's not the case.

When did the whole news on the Swine Flu break? Friday? Saturday? All I know is that Boug came home from Gramma's on Sunday night with a fever, by Monday night there was a hacking cough, congestion, teary eyes... no one wants to see their kid like that. By Tuesday afternoon she was lethargic and miserable. This is the kid who NEVER gets sick. In her almost 5 years of age, the child hasn't even been on an antibiotic once. So of course, the very first thing I do is call the doc... they got us in today at 1:10...

I love love love our pediatrician, but today was one of those days, one of the days that I wasn't too sure of him. He tells me that NY State can only send in 3 samples a day to be tested for Swine Flu. There's only ONE facility in the U.S. that runs the tests. With 50 states and over 300,000,000 in the U.S. how can there only be 1 facility that will do these tests for the entire country?? Shouldn't we be running the tests on the people who are most at risk if they are showing symptoms? The very young and the very old?? He did remind me that the regular flu takes thousands of lives each year and though it will most likely happen with the Swine Flu, there is no way of knowing yet its severity and not to forget to put things into perspective. Being currently in a phase 5 outbreak, the 2nd highest on the scale, does mean that a pandemic is iminant. There will be deaths. Lets not turn our backs or become overly confident in ourselves and our medical system, you never know what can happen. Now wouldn't be the best time to have the "it wont happen to me" attitude.

I fear for the country and the world for the people who are dealing with this and I respect the scientists and doctors that are doing all that they can to remedy this as quickly as possible.

What are your feelings about this pandemic that is affecting our world??