Preparing for Flu and other diseases

Well people, my boy brought the bug home and after a couple weeks of fighting it he’s with pneumonia and so am I.

Schools here are mostly empty due to the Bronchiolitis and flu epidemic, A flu being the least of the concerns.
A doctor told me today that this same day he treated a school teacher, she had 5 students left in her class, many other schools have closed, some officially, some unofficially. As always authorities here choose to lie and the official number is 25 schools in Buenos Aires. Of course by now we are used to their lies.
The doctor told me he’s never seen anything like this in 30 years of practicing family medicine.
It was very comforting to have a well stocked stash, and not worrying about finding indispensables in the pharmacy, only doing it to rotate and buy more meds with the discount I get.
So people, I’m about to go to bed but wanted to drop a few quick points to keep in mind.

1)Health care insurance? Have it, love it. I pay dearly for mine, but I pick up the phone and a real doctor actually shows up in a matter of hours, this way I avid going to hospitals of offices where you can catch even more bugs in the waiting room.
Here that costs for this type of coverage is almost 300 USD a month, but having had to hospitalize my kid 3 times, I know its worth it. One of the times I barely made it to the hospital, so when people talk about the advantages of being a gas tank away from cities as a realistic survival advantage, I just shrug. Guess they are those type of people that don’t get sick or have to rush to the hospital or call an ambulance… Ever.

2)Have a well stocked supply of medicines and yes, that SPECIALLY includes antibiotics. Antibiotics save more lives than anything else, when you need them there’s no other substitute that comes nearly as close in terms of effectiveness. Spare me the don’t take antibiotics speech. When there’s a steady infection there’s no other way. I keep mostly amoxicillin, both for adults and kids. For pneumonia they gave me claritomycin, and they gave my son the pediatric version of the same drug as well, so I’ll get a few extra boxes of that as well. Before you ask about how to get antibiotics in USA, no idea guys. All I can suggest is having a serious down to earth chat with you doctor, hopefully its someone you trust or a close family friend. Tell him about your intentions of taking first aid classes and putting together a good first aid kid in case of emergencies.
Don’t forget ibuprofen and paracetamol, both for adults and kids. Again, this I had stocked already and came in VERY handy when my son had 41ºC fever a few days ago. Get BOTH, because with very high and persistent fever you may have to use both and rotate to keep the fever under control. Also baths slowly adding colder water and the good old wet cloth or bandana to the forehead, neck and wrists, so as to fight fever everyway you can. With such high fevers it’s important to keep the head from getting too hot. I also had several syringes for calculating the needed dose. The smaller ones I’ve fond to be indispensable for babies, slowly applying straight into the baby’s mouth, slightly pressing against the lip commissure, the infant has no other choice but to swallow the medicine.
Nebulization saline solution as well as Bronchiodilator drops. ONLY used when the doctor tell you so, but it would be awful to need it and not have it when you go to the pharmacy because they ran out. Specially saline solution, you use it a lot and it’s so cheap, no reason not to have 5-10 bottles, preferably much more.
Then of course you have your typical first aid kit supplies, but these are some important things needed that First aid kits sometimes don’t have.
About the nebulizator, its so important, specially for children, I have two just in case one brakes.

3)Preventive measures people, disinfectant gel/hand sanitizer (several bottles), as well as face masks. Don’t forget the good old soap, which works very well when used properly.
The doctor told me that I should use face masks when going outside, given how much bugs are out there and my problem, but he said it would be almost impossible to find masks these days, given the mass A flu hysteria. The doctor seemed very surprised and pleasantly so when I told him not to worry, that I already had masks covered.

4)Disposable tissue! You need this and you’ll use a lot of them. Remember not to use the same towel as the rest of the family.

5)Cover your mouth when coughing and try avoiding contact with healthy family members.

6)Get your flu shots! Not perfect but it covers some of the most common types.

7)Remember to drink lots and lots of water.
That’s what comes to mind right now but there’s of course much more, these are just the few basics that come to mind right now.
Take care.

FerFAL