GProgress

Thinking of going to the emergency room because you’ve got a cold? Think harder.

As many of you know, you normally go to get your flu shot once a year, around Winter time. I’ve got a great idea! How about instead of wasting your time and injecting a virus into your blood, with an 80% chance of getting sick; you stay home, eat right and take care of yourself.

I’m sick of seeing these stupid commercials for getting your “free flu shot!” Sure, it sounds all dandy, but I’ve never met a person who got the flu shot, and NOT gotten the flu afterwards. Its idiotic. It’s like they want to pack the emergency room full of dim-wits who think if they have the flu, they’ve got to go check themselves in. Guess what? You’re not going to die (unless you’re a little kid, or above 60), so why not stay in bed and have lots of soup and liquids until it blows over? What can the doctor do about the flu for you? Nothing. There are no antibiotics for the flu. Some of you may have skimmed over that last sentence, so I’ll repeat myself. There are no anti-biotics for the flu. Stop crying about having a sore tummy and a runny nose. It’s life, it’s normal, suck it up baby.

Why am I so uptight about this you ask? Let me tell you a story regarding flu season:

A couple winters ago nearing Christmas, my father was taking out the garbage
(containing a few pieces of broken glass). The stairs outside were a little slippery, so he took it easy walking down. None-the-less, he slipped and a shard of glass cut a moderately big piece of skin off of his hand. You know the part of the hand between the thumb and the index finger? Yea, it made a big slice right in the middle of that. From the way he was showing his pain, you’d think his hand had been cut off. I don’t blame him though, I would have acted just the same. Having jagged glass rip into your body kind of hurts. He rushed inside with blood dripping everywhere and wrapped his hand up with gauze, moaning in pain the whole time. We get in the car to go to the emergency room so he can have it looked at/stitched up. Wouldn’t you know it? The emergency room was packed full of sick idiots!

(Side note: if you go to an emergency room while carrying a highly contagious virus, the other people in there are the most likely to catch it) Obviously for some reason the nurse at the counter couldn’t of cared less about what she was doing, or the people she was dealing with. Apparently in Canada, it’s a first come, first server basis. I would think the smarter way to do it would be to help the most needy first. I tell you, my dad would be the most needy person there. He was the only person who legitimately deserved to be in that room. Do you know what we did next? We waited. And waited. And waited. We waited for four and a half hours before my dad finally losing all patience, getting up to the nurse, telling her how much the hospital sucks, and left. There’s four hours of my life I’ll never get back, and there’s a much longer healing process for my dad.

So please, the next time you get any sign of the flu, don’t race to your car keys, wait it out and think about others you narrow-minded dolt. You’d be causing more of a fuss if you went, rather than staying home like every other person with common sense. Remember the story of what happened to my dad. If you do get bold enough to go back to the emergency room, make sure you let anyone else who has a real injury in front of you. That’d be super nice. Also, if you go, be sure to bring some sort of covering - so when you cough, less of it gets airborne and gives me the flu, because I don’t want to have to deal with it because of a stupid choice on your part.