What's with all the sickness & death?

[trinamick]

Of course, I don't mean that in regards to the grand scheme of things, but just this winter in general. In the last month, over 32 people have died in our town of about 3,000 (it's unheard of around here). Our assisted living places and nursing homes have been quarantined, our hospitals are full, and everyone seems to have been sick at least once. A friend of mine has had a baby in the hospital with RSV and pneumonia for 2 weeks, my cousin's wife has meningitis, and my mom's cousin had a heart attack and a brain aneurysm. Then today, my brother-in-law's mom died. :'( They just put her in the hospital last night! They weren't all in our town, but it's happened all in the span of a couple of weeks. It seems like we just start dealing with one catastrophe when another one hits full force.

Maybe it's just the winter season that brings out the illness. I know the flu has been pretty widespread, and many who have died are older. Or maybe it's just more noticeable to me since it's been hitting our family so much lately. Perhaps it's something in the water around here. Has it been this way everywhere?

[Antrobus]

It's a very bad flu/pneumonia year. I work in a hospital and notice that the elderly are being hit quite hard with it. Most nursing homes are having problems with it too.

There is much talk of a pandemic flu striking in a near future year. It would be something akin to the flu epidemic of 1918. (And no, I don't remember it!). I remember older relatives talking about the 1918 epidemic and it was quite terrible. The death toll was staggering!

[Sunderflame]

Same goes for my hubby's family. Of course I think it's all population control by our beloved govenment.....It all seems the same to me, then again I've never had a cold.
I have lupus but then again I love wolves.......hahha got laugh at life or it will kill you.....

[grinner]

There was talk that some biological weapons were released during the 'incident in the middle east'. Or that is a theory that I heard. The theory went that it took about a year for the bio-agents to spread enough to do serious harm. I don't buy it... but... it's a theory.

[Sunderflame]

his research in OT's . It may be Harveylives, the one with the Superman graphic......He alway's gives us fresh updates...

[Sunderflame]

sorry, Harveylives is the scaper news updater.....for some of the weirder stuff,

[atlantagirl]

Just wait for the wheel, trinamick. There have always been particularly bad times throughout history both on the micro and macro level. And they are invariably followed eventually by particularly good times. Your family seems to be suffering a lot of losses right now, but that will change. Springtime is just around the corner, and it can work wonders! Just wait for the wheel.

:hug:

[harveywhispers]

Sunderflame originally posted
ok Harveywhisper's should be doing his research in OT's . It may be Harveylives, the one with the Superman graphic......He alway's gives us fresh updates...

Uuhhh...:confused:

<======female of her species:D

[AgentSun]

if you look at the death and illness statistics, it turns out that illness is fairly evenly spread out between ages, but death usually comes to the very young or very old. i think it has to do with immune system efficiency. i didn't even get the flu this year. i got a cold, where i was coughing and had a runny nose, but no fever or sneezing. its been a very bad year for that, yeah, but i hope it'll pass soon...

[vikingscaper]

So far, I consider myself lucky. Everybody in my family has come down with something recently and I have stayed healthy. The last time that I was sick was in July and during Fall.

[Judith]

Originally posted by Antrobus
It's a very bad flu/pneumonia year. I work in a hospital and notice that the elderly are being hit quite hard with it. Most nursing homes are having problems with it too.

There is much talk of a pandemic flu striking in a near future year. It would be something akin to the flu epidemic of 1918. (And no, I don't remember it!). I remember older relatives talking about the 1918 epidemic and it was quite terrible. The death toll was staggering!

Not that the flu wasn't dangerous, but I thought that part of the reason so many people died was the advent of codeine. People took codeine, and felt better, and thought they were getting better. But codeine is a cough supressent. When you have the flu, you need to cough. People suffocated.

This is not that codeine is all that dangerous...we just didn't know how to use it back then.

[atlantagirl]

Originally posted by Judith_Shakespeare
Not that the flu wasn't dangerous, but I thought that part of the reason so many people died was the advent of codeine. People took codeine, and felt better, and thought they were getting better. But codeine is a cough supressent. When you have the flu, you need to cough. People suffocated.

This is not that codeine is all that dangerous...we just didn't know how to use it back then.

It was a true, global pandemic killing tens of millions of people worldwide. I don't know whether codeine played a part in some deaths, but the 1918 flu crossed all international borders and killed people whether they had access to codeine (or other meds) or not.

Interesting info at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/

[Judith]

Originally posted by atlantagirl
It was a true, global pandemic killing tens of millions of people worldwide. I don't know whether codeine played a part in some deaths, but the 1918 flu crossed all international borders and killed people whether they had access to codeine (or other meds) or not.



Oh I'm not saying it wasn't real. And I'm not saying that the threat of another flu pandemic doesn't scare me. But I try and keep that fear in check with the idea that we have better medical knowledge now.

[atlantagirl]

Fingers crossed. :D

[LadyCrais]

That's a sad situation you've got there Trinamick. I hope things improve out there soon.

For anyone that's interested, this is the lastest report from the Center for Disease Control. We're well above epidemic rates in the U.S., though oddly Nebraska is one of the very few states that's claiming only regional rather than widespread occurrence. The death rate from flu and pneumonia is a couple of percentage points above the epidemic classification though. That the vaccine wasn't specific to the primary flu this year is probably exacerbating the problem.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

[trinamick]

Glad to know it's not just here. They even had an article in our paper about the unusual increase in deaths lately. My mom has even been a little concerned, since several people her age (early 50's) have died in the last month. Plus, in the last year, 6 or 7 people in our small town have found out that have brain tumors and one man died from it. My bil's mom was in her late 60's, but it was just unexpected. She has been sick off and on, but had been doing so much better. His dad died less than a year ago, but with his bad health that was understandable.

Our town had just gotten over the respiratory junk when the intestinal stuff hit. My sister works in an assisted living facility and they have to wear gloves and masks every day, shower before they go home, etc. Hopefully, it will be over soon.