Ask a Bitter Medic: Vaccinations

I’d like to talk about some facts versus folk wisdom and pseudoscience about vaccinations, and flu shots in particular.

“But the flu shots just makes me sick,” you say. “Why take a shot that makes me sick?”

A fair question, and one that is easily answered, but we’re all too damn overworked, underfunded and harried to explain it, plus, we hear any anti-vaccine stuff and we just roll our eyes and punch a wall, pretending it’s Jenny McCarthy. 

Now, I know Ms McCarthy has tried to make amends for her crimes against public health by posing again in Playboy, and we’re grateful, but, Jenny, that’s not quite gonna cut it.

So, anyway, here goes:

The flu shot does not “make you sick.” It’s a dead virus. Your body recognizes the foreign invader and the body’s immune response can make you feel lousy. Fever, inflammation, nausea, these are all part of your body’s immune response.

The reaction to the flu shot lasts a day, and can be unpleasant. My five year old son got the shot and was cranky and achy for one evening. He coped, and HE’S FIVE.

The alternative is he maybe gets the flu.

Influenza is a highly contagious and dangerous disease. 250,000 to 500,00 people DIE worldwide each year from the flu.  Mostly older people, very young people and those with preexisting medical problems, but even the healthy flu sufferer will have severe symptoms for a week or two. And the flu sucks. You’re not limping in to work, like you have a cold. You are lying in bed with a high fever, praying for death’s sweet release.

Plus, once one member of the family has it, it will rage through the household like Chlamydia through a Christian Youth Bible Camp, and you lose a week’s sick time (or pay, if you’re one of us who doesn’t have all that much sick time) taking care of a sick kid while praying for death’s sweet release.

And if you follow Mitt’s advise and call an ambulance, we will take you to the ER, where they won’t be able to do a damn thing to cure the flu, but will subject everybody else to your germs, and run up a bill.

All the while, thinking “Why didn't you just get the fucking shot?’

This has been a Public service announcement by Bitter Medics Against Pseudoscience. We return you to the internet.

Yeah, we kinda know we’re fighting a losing battle, but there ya go.

Lessons in being a Man.

Today we taught the boy about facing fears and overcoming obstacles.

Like rules.

We went to the park with lots and lots of slides. Now, it was a cloudy, muggy, lousy weekday, so the place was nearly empty. My five year old wanted to climb up the high, twisty slide after sliding down. Now, this is technically verboten. 

But it was awesome and huge and scary. It was, in his young mind, Everest. No way was I going to let something as pointless as The Rules take that way from him.

That said, there's a reason they have that rule. It's so we don't have a six toddler pile up as some other kiddo comes barreling down and mows his young legs from under him. Although that is also part of growing up. So I explained why the rule says no climbing, and why it didn't apply today and how we're Men, and we were damn well going to climb that mother.

So now he both knows the heady rush adrenaline of overcoming you fear of heights, and that when confronted with a Rule, one should as "why?" if the answer is something like "So you don't wind up breathing through a tube," that's a rule you should obey. If the answer is "because it Says So," then you can get all Henry David Thoreau on its ass.

Changes

Plenty has happened since I've neglected this space for the past few months.

I changed jobs. Well, ok, I was asked to change jobs, and had two very scary, stress inducing months without a paycheck before landing a new job for slightly better pay at a company with an atmosphere more to my taste, but there you go.

My son is finishing his last summer as a free man. Next week, he enters the belly of the beast and starts Kindergarten.  I could make some Pink Floyd references, if I were truly pessimistic, but I'll keep it light and think of the Indigo Girls. He can spend the next few years prostrate to the higher mind, get his paper and be free.

My book is out. Go buy it. It's brilliant. It's available as an ebook this second. Paperback books coming soon. The proofs are done, off to the printers, not sure how long until you can buy one, but soon.

It's a paranormal thriller set against the background of a private EMS company in a tough, economically depressed town. Fun for the whole family. If you ever wondered what the bastard offspring of Robert B Parker and Roger Zelanzy would look like, but lack the background in necromancy and  genetics to make that happen, this book is for you.

I'll try to be better about this blog. 

Fun, differing definitions of

Going over the copyedit for "Out of Nowhere."

Imagine the combined fun of an employee review, a note from your ex telling you why she left, and your mom giving you advice on your lifestyle.

It's not quite that much fun.

On Aspirations, Realistc

Starting work at a new ambulance company next week. My goal is to hit the four year mark at a company.

  A dream I've had unfulfilled for twelve years.

I reckon you'd get your ass kicked for something like that.

A medic friend of mine had his toothpaste stolen at work. From his toiletry bag which was in the base bathroom. He became incensed at this, and had some choice words for the perpetrator. I think those words were "pathological lying scumbag thieving shit bag coworkers."


People told him to calm down, toothpaste costs a buck, keep his perspective.


Fuck that.


Stealing a squeeze of toothpaste from a tube left out on the sink, sure. going through another guy's bag and taking the tube is another.

It stuns me because I've always found people to be ready to lend stuff if asked. I've lent toothpaste, soap, shampoo, uniform parts, stethoscopes, ibuprofen, allergy medicine, money, food, and a few times my car to co-workers. People I only knew from working the truck. And I've borrowed most of those things when I needed them. All without thinking. I've come in early and stayed late for people. Taken somebody else's call because they needed a shower in the middle of a double shift.

In this business, we should look out for one another, and expect our co-workers to do the same for us. Having one another's back used to be the expected standard.


If I can't trust you with my $1.29 tube of Colgate, how can I trust you when you say you checked the cardiac monitor batteries? Or the expiration dates on the drugs? Or that you'll speak up when I'm headed down the wrong path on a complex medical call on no sleep at 3 in the morning?

Yeah, toothpaste is minor, but the disrespect is a betrayal. You don't steal from your partners, and you watch their backs, because EMTs and Medics are the only people who will look out for other EMTs and Medics.

If we can't count on one another, what does that leave us?

New Plan for the Publishing Industry...

They're going to stop rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and start colluding against icebergs.

There has been a lot of moaning by publishers and big bookstore chains about how e-books and Amazon are threatening to put them out of business. E-books are outselling hardcopy books, Amazon is undercutting  prices, e-books sell for less, so the profit to the publisher--oh, yeah, and some other guy...Oh! Right, the author-- is lower.

Doom and despondency all around.

What I'm not hearing at all is whether total book sales, e-books included, are up or down. Paperbacks are down, yes. And despite the handwringing, that doesn't mean a damn thing. CD sales are down as well, but people still buy new music. Eight track sales may never recover.

If the publishing industry as a whole is selling more books, whether through Amazon, Apple, brick and mortar or whatever, that is a net boon to writers. The potential audience is growing. People who live out in the sticks, people in countries where their native tongue isn't the standard, all can now get any book any time, via online e-book sales. This is a Good Thing.

And Amazon isn't piracy. People pay for the e-books. So the author gets something, and with the longer reach, the author should get a piece of greater overall potential sales.

E-books should not cost the same as print. Yes, the author worked just as hard on it. So did the editor. But there are savings in production, shipping, storage and returns. This is truth. And an e-book is less valuable to the consumer, since it's harder to lend, you can't sell it at a yard sale or donate it to the local library when you finish it.  If an e-book is $10 I will stick to print. And I will buy half as many books as if I can get a $4.99 e-book.

Maybe the publishing industry should try to sell more books, encourage more reading among the next generation (say what you like but the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series have done all writers a great service by introducing recreational reading to more young people) than trying to ensure they get the same cut they always have.

They need to stop rhapsodizing the longbow and crying when the enemy bring a machine gun to the field.
Amazon sells a boatload of books. Let's encourage the selling of a boatload of books.