Friday, October 30, 2009

When to see a doctor?

This past Tuesday I came down with the flu. I knew something was wrong that morning but it wasn't too bad and since most of my coworkers are out of town I figured my isolated cube would not put others at risk so I went in. After lunch it really started hitting me and when I got home from work I had a fever of 102F.

My wife went into nurse mode and started taking care of me which was very nice. Wednesday I was down hard through out the night, through Wednesday, and till noon of Thursday. The fever has been gone since Thursday but I am still fatigued and clammy. I have gone through 4 gallons of water in three days which is good except that it hurt to get up and go to the bathroom. Luckily, there has been no puking or heavy coughing. I do cough up some crud but not very often.

I have been sicker than this.

So, why the hell am I writing a blog about this? Who cares about me being sick?

lol, I am bored to death and only now had the energy to pull out the laptop and hook it up.

The purpose of this post is to ask you manly men out there when is it time to go see the doc?

Some people would go to the doc at the first cough or sign of a fever.

Others say no blood no foul.

I am sure most people are somewhere in the middle.

With the swine flu "epidemic" in full swing people might be even more prone to go to the doc.

Here are my thoughts:

-I really want to go to doc to find out if I have the swine flu. Just so I can say I had it and survived. Might make a tee shirt or something.

-I do not go to the doc unless there is something wrong with me and I don't know what it is. I know what the flu feels like, I do not need a doc to tell me I have the flu and then prescribe me something I could have bought over the counter.

-I also know that if I have a fever for more then a day or two I need to be checked out for more severe problems.

So when do you go to the doc? Do you consider it a your personal responsibility to get checked out right away or to stay at home?

3 comments:

Jacki said...

I knew it seemed quiet at work...

I think personal responsibility question is more concerning in whether or not a person goes to work. If you're contagious, stay at home. If you're not, I'm leaning towards staying at home for that too. But I'm just in slacker mode these days.

Whether a person chooses to get treatment is only a personal responsibility issue (in my mind) if they can cause harm to others. If a person wants to let a non-communicable disease kill them, who cares if they aren't going to cause a world of hurt by making that decision.

Of course, if you're going to leave a truckload of people weeping at your passing by not getting treatment, then maybe you owe them that much. Unless you secretly hate them all.

Now if you have the something like the plague and go to work and don't make some effort (as you did) to keep from passing your cooties on to everyone you see, then you should be shot with a tranquilizer dart and dragged off to a remote (undisclosed) location before the disease even gets a chance to progress.

Either way, I think I'm going to stay at home every day next week on the odd chance you gave me the flu because it's the responsible thing to do. ;)

RamRod said...

HOLY COW!!!

You said YOUR WIFE! I still can't believe that incredibly beautiful, extremely smart woman actually married you.

Oh yeah....and I hope you feel better.....

Warthog said...

Jacki - Thanks for the comment. See you tomorrow.

James - You are such a kiss ass it is ridiculous!!!