The Flu

Matt has the flu. Last night he complained that his chest hurt and he was having a hard time breathing. He was pale so I told him he was going to stay home from school today. When the hubby got home from darts I told him that Matt didn't look well and that he'd complained about not breathing well and that if he wasn't better over the weekend, I take him to the doctor on Monday. The hubby said I should take him today. We do have insurance, we should use it, right?

I got him an appointment early in the afternoon and he described his symptoms, which had gotten more numerous since morning. Fever, headache, exhaustion, sore throat, mild cough, stuffy nose and body aches. As he described them I thought Flu, so did the doctor. We were sent to a lab to do a rapid flu test but they'd quit running them for the day. They took the sample anyway, saying they'd run it at noon on Saturday. Well... if you have the flu, you have 24 hours to start antiviral medications. I pointed that out to them and they said they were sorry but there was nothing they could do. I called the doctor, explained the situation and he decided to start him on Tamiflu anyway. The catch - since Matt has it, we will all get it. Our doctor prescribed Tamiflu for all five of us. The pharmacy only had three courses of it and said they could try to find more or we could come back on Monday to get the rest and share the three doses until then. Matt has to take two pills a day for five days, the rest of us get one a day for ten days. The cost - $60 per prescription - after our insurance paid. I'll let that settle in for a minute.

I paid $180 for three courses of medication and decided that if the test came back negative, I wouldn't buy the other two on Monday. At 4:30 my doctor called and said they'd tested Matt's sample and it was positive for the flu. There goes another $120.

I guess if we were going to get sick and have to spend a lot of money, now is the time since there's money in the bank. Normally the cost would be totally out of our league.

The funny thing is that when Jake got home, I handed him a pill to take and told him what it was for. He said, "Why? This is an opportunity we should be embracing!" He's weird. He's been trying to find a really good reason not to go to school but his need to be there always outweighs his desire to be a lazy teenager. He figured this was a very good excuse.

Regarding Flu Shots - because I know I will be asked.
We don't get them, we never have. Lindsay has a very difficult time with vaccinations. She gets a huge bump, like a golf ball is partially embedded in her skin. Her arm swells and she gets very ill. We get her the immunizations she absolutely needs, but we've skipped some - the varicella and flu vaccines.

The last time someone in our house got the flu was nine years ago. Lindsay was three months old when she got it. No one else did. I'm also opposed to getting a vaccine for a disease that isn't actually likely to kill us. Generally, the very old and very young are at higher risk. Our doctor convinced me to get the prescriptions for the four of us that aren't sick by suggesting that if we did get it, the hubby and I would be out of work for four or five days and if we didn't have sick days, which we don't, we would be out more money than the Tamiflu actually cost. That's a fair argument.

Anyway, Matt will be on the couch and in bed his entire three day weekend, which doesn't make him very happy. The rest of us will be popping a pill every day and hoping we don't get sick.