I read a short story in our paper last night that the flu was particularly bad this winter, resulting in more adult deaths and doctor visits than usual.  Part of the problem was that this year’s flu shot was not a particularly good match with the flu strains that were going around.  But the main reason, according to a story in today’s New York Times, is that the A flu that was going around was a particularly virulent type.

I can attest to this. My 12-year-old son has never gotten a flu shot, so his experience with the flu this year would be typical of other years he’s gotten influenza. It was the sickest I’ve ever seen him, poor child. He came home from school on a Friday night and felt tired; missed the school dance because he had a slight temperature.  We set him up on the couch with blankets, a pillow and a movie on TV.  He didn’t get off that couch except to go to the bathroom for a full seven days.  His experience included a 104 temperature on Day 5, when I expected he’d be on the mend, and a subsequent visit to the doctor.  He didn’t have any complications — just a really bad case of the flu.

I only mention this because I’ve always been of the mind to hold off on getting flu shots until we’re older, and in the ‘at risk’ group.  When my kids were young, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn’t recommending flu shots for toddlers.  And I always wonder a bit about that moving target — next year they’re going to start recommending the shot for kids through age 18!  But after watching him go through this ordeal — it took him another week just to build back his strength — I think we’ll all be getting flu shots next year.

There’s one other reason, though, that I’ve changed my tune on this, something I haven’t seen in any of the media reports on this winter’s flu. In January, the CDC issued an advisory which noted that, although the number of flu deaths among children rose only slightly in 2007, the number caused by a staph infection as a complication of the flu saw a five-fold increase. And, 15 of the 22 children who died from the staph infection had MRSA, the kind of staph that is resistant to antibiotics.

During the flu season, after my son got sick in February, I called Mary Small with the Chelan-Douglas Health District, to find out if this was a particularly bad season. And while at that time, it wasn’t, she did remind me that the flu kills.  It is a serious disease, and when we’re young and healthy, we tend to think we have other important things to do, and we can’t possibly take the time off work because we’re sick.  But as these drug resistant strains of bacteria creep into our lives, we’re not going to be able to rely on a doctor visit and course of antibiotics to cure us. Her recommendation: Get the flu shot, wash your hands a lot, and stay home and in bed when you’re sick.