Friday 6 September 2013

Contagion in Basingstoke!

I was looking forward to writing a post on 1st September waving a fond farewell to August. It was a month full of germs in our house, unfortunately September has not started as I would have hoped. 

August saw my little man bouncing from one viral infection to another, the evil little germs all seemed to attack whilst his immune system was low  following his fall and subsequent A&E scare. So I have been changing his snot covered bedding on a daily basis and generally wrapping him in cotton wool and spoiling him rotten with treats and trips out. He is such a little trooper, he faced all this infection with a smile on his face, and even when his voice was nearly gone he was giggling away. I could learn a lot from him!

He is now on antibiotics to beat the final few germs giving his little body a chance to recover fully before we head into autumn and the stream of colds he is no doubt likely to contract from nursery. 

My husband and I managed to dodge most of these infections except for us both feeling horrid for 48 hours, I thought we escaped lightly

This was all August and I was ready to say goodbye (with the exception of completing the little man's antibiotics), we were done....

but no........now I'm ill

I woke on Wednesday morning with my alarm at 6am and what felt like a golf ball in my throat, a thumping head ache and a squeaky voice. 

I texted my boss and said I wasn't coming to work, next thing I knew it was 2pm. I obviously needed that sleep

I haven't managed to shake it off and went to the Dr today. There is a chance I have tonsillitis, I had this a few times as a teenager and don't relish the opportunity to experience it again, so I have a prescription for antibiotics which I'm hoping will do the trick so normal service will resume on Monday.

The irony of all of this is that during August my husband and I watched Contagion

Contagion


I doubt it won many Oscars, however, I really enjoyed it and the story line has really got me thinking. For anyone who hasn't seen this film the premise is
deadly virus is spreading across the globe - passing from human to human quickly 
where did it start? 
can it be stopped? 

My little man (and now me) have picked up so many bugs recently could this really happen?  I'm already a paranoid user of hand sanitizer when we are out and about, but is this enough? My thoughts have even wandered this morning as to whether I should ditch hand towels in the bathrooms at home in favour of a huge pile of face clothes which you use once and pit in a towel bin to be washed and then reused, a la posh restaurant. Is this going too far?

I know there is a need to contract some germs in order to exercise your immune system like any other part of the body - use it or loose it! And certainly when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s there weren't such things as hand sanitizer. But life was different back then. We didn't travel quite so frequently internationally, or sit on air conditioned trains to commute to work where a sneeze 3 carriages down is efficiently shared with the whole train.

I don't know what the answer is, but as strip my little man's bed again to wash the snot away and I gently sip on my water gritting my teeth as I painfully swallow I'm trying to figure out how to avoid getting infected again.

Answers on a post card 

3 comments:

  1. That all sounds awful. I hate germs. Manuka honey is really good for sore throats. You can get it in the supermarket about £10 a jar though but has really good antibacterial properties. You can use a few spoons in hot water with lemon for a sore throat x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh thanks for that idea, and honey in tea sounds like a good form of medicine x

      Delete
  2. The answer is to never ever ever go into soft play with your child ;o) Can't get out of there without picking up some kind of virus, it's like a walk in petri dish for kids and their parents!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by.
I really do appreciate every comment so would be grateful if you let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

Becca x