Plague Year

      Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, and me?  Lo, plagues will be with us always.

The one I remember best and worst, 1968, Hong Kong Flu.  It killed nearly a million people worldwide.  I think it came close to killing me. I don’t think there was ever a thought of shutting the world down to halt the spread of the virus.  “Hong Kong Flu” is probably a politically incorrect name nowadays. 

     I indulged in two ill-advised activities prior to the disease’s onset.  I went to North High School in Denver sometime in November.  It was a class requirement—Methods and Observation, the class.  It was a crowded place, North High.  The Hong Kong flu must have been having a picnic.

      Having survived the trip to and from Denver and the observation of some of the English classes at North High, I stopped at Club Leto, or whatever it was called, somewhere in the dive called Garden City south of Greeley.  That was a mistake.  A little too much to drink caused me to wake up the next day with what turned out to be much more than a normal hangover.

     I know I missed more than a week of classes.  Friends had to bring me groceries.  I was too weak to leave the house.  I lived on Coke and canned soup, I think.  I couldn’t keep up with wiping my nose with tissue.  When the waste basket got full of discarded tissues, I put the basket on the floor between my knees and let my head hang over and drip into the basket.

      I think I lost at least fifteen pounds.  I was not back to normal for at least two months.  It was a struggle to finish the quarter and begin my student teaching in January.   I survived, and I have never had a serious case of respiratory-type flu since then. 

     The next memorable flu pandemic was the swine flu of 1976.  This time, pigs bore the brunt of the blame, although the truth is, the swine flu came from China as well.  Again, there was no thought of disrupting the world’s economy to save lives.

     I remember a speaker presenting a “Lyceum”, what we used to call an assembly program, at our Kansas school, on the swine flu.  He said the virus developed in China where pigs shared the home with the family and managed to adapt from swine to humans.  Thus, the swine flu.  He offered the now-ubiquitous advice to frequently wash your hands, capture your coughs and sneezes with tissue or handkerchief (using elbows hadn’t been invented yet), and stay home if you don’t feel well. 

       Nobody followed the advice much.  I remember one poor kid who was on a severe diet so he could make weight on the wrestling team.  He caught the flu.  No question he could make weight.  But he barely had the strength to walk up the stairs at the high school, let alone take on a wrestling opponent.  He looked like he had drunk a bottle of bleach, he was that white.

     Gerald Ford was our president, our only unelected one, in 1976.  He kicked off a campaign to vaccinate America so the flu would not become pandemic.  Companies rushed into production to produce enough vaccine to do the job.

      On a warm October afternoon, the Goodwife and I stood in a line nearly a block long in our small town, waiting our turn to get vaccinated against the swine flu.  In front of us was a farmer named Earle who was the father of four girls and who had recently lost his wife to cancer. 

     That accidental shuffling of us human cards would have a lasting effect on my life.  Earle and I would go on to own airplanes together.  When I quit teaching in 1980, Earle hired me to drive his tractor and help him remodel his house.  We would remain friends for the rest of his life.

     Gerry Ford’s mass vaccination backfired a little bit.  The pandemic didn’t really develop in 1976-77.  Many people suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome after being vaccinated, and the vaccine was blamed.  Some folks say the reaction to the 1976 mass vaccination was the beginning of the anti-vaxxer movement still alive today.

     Gerry Ford ran for election in 1976, and some pundits blame the flu vaccine fiasco for his loss, but in reality, Gerry had other problems, namely the pardoning of his former boss, Richard Nixon.  His “WIN” campaign (Whip Inflation Now) probably didn’t help.  History has proved him to be an honest, down-to-earth man (“I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln”, he used to say), something sadly lacking in today’s political arena.

       Here in March of 2020, our leaders have shut the world economy down in order to protect human life.  Everywhere we hear the time-honored advice, “Wash your hands, Roger, wash your hands”.  Cover your coughs and sneezes.  Stay home if you don’t feel well.

      Panic has driven folks to hoard toilet paper and sanitizers of all kinds.  Old people are particularly vulnerable to the disease. 

      Our three-year-old granddaughter fell ill a couple of weeks ago.  She had a high fever that eventually led her mother to take her to urgent care as advised by the family doctor.  The doctor also said to keep her away from her grandparents, for months.

      The urgent care folks tested granddaughter for flu, found her flu free, and eventually sent her on to the emergency room because she had lung congestion.  At the ER, they tested her again for the flu, even though Mom told them she had already been tested.  They prescribed an inhaler to keep her breathing going and sent them home.

      In a day or two, the fever subsided and granddaughter seemed back to normal.  Then, the fever came back.  This time, the doctor visit consisted of the patient staring into a smart phone while the health care professional observed on her screen from a very safe distance.  (No coming into the doctor’s office if you are sick.  If you aren’t sick, no chance of getting into the doctor’s office either.  Hmmmm.) 

     When granddaughter thought she was going to have to return to the urgent care facility, she began to cry and importune her mother.  It took a few tries, but she finally made her mother understand, she didn’t have any boogers, her nose was clean, don’t let them stick that stick in her nose again.

      The poor little girl was spared another flu test, and even a trip out of the kitchen.  The health care professional prescribed something, which she was to take if things didn’t clear up in the next day or two.  All of this done by phone.  Again, she rallied and then suffered a relapse.  Maybe it will end soon.  Does she have CoViD-19?  No way of knowing because there is no test unless you have a doctor’s prescription.

      Anyway, we have stayed clear.  I have no desire to see if my viral immunity from 1968 is effective with what’s going on now.  I haven’t taken a flu vaccine many times since 1976.  If they develop one for CoViD-19, I will go stand in line again.  

      We have never taken such steps in reaction to a health crisis.  When I was a kid, I feared polio.  I saw pictures in My Weekly Reader of kids in iron lungs.  I think I would have rather died than be confined in that contraption.  We all took our March of Dimes cards home and filled the slots with dimes.  We never thought to cancel school or confine folks to their homes.  Eventually there would be a vaccine to insure no one had to ever suffer from polio again.

     We will get through this one, too.  Eventually, there will be a vaccine.          

      But I have to ask, will the cure for CoViD-19 be worse than the disease.  Will poverty result from draconian shut downs?  Will folks emerge in better or worse shape as a result of our attempts to dodge the virus?