Tag: ick

The Flu: Day Four

Well I think it’s day four. Maybe. This all started Saturday night and it’s now Tuesday afternoon.

Wow, it’s been one hell of a ride.

I’m a bit more coherent now. I think? I hope?

I actually remember very little of a period of about 36 hours starting Saturday night. This is probably not a bad thing because what little I do remember is unpleasant in the extreme. Between what turns out to be an H3N2 influenza infection, two out of control panic attacks, two SVT episodes and two very unpleasant visits to the ER, this is something I would very much rather forget than remember. So the fact that everything about those two days is more than a bit vague is probably a good thing.

So I’m up to day four now and things are doing considerably better. I’m told I was running a fever of 103 when they had me in the ER. That’s down to normal. My head is still badly congested, as is my chest. The cough is nowhere near as bad as it was, but it’s still there. Just walking up a flight of stairs at a normal pace leaves me out of breath at the moment. I have a wicked headache. I slept for almost 4 hours last night which isn’t much, but that’s the most sleep I got since this all started so that’s something I guess.

For the first time since Saturday I’m actually interested in eating and I’m going to take a stab at eating something other than crackers and clear broth a bit later and see how that goes.

They put me on Tamiflu as soon as they tests that confirmed I had the bug came back. I’ve been taking that twice a day and it’s hard to tell if it’s doing any good or not. At best they say it can reduce the severity of symptoms and shorten the duration by a few days and I’ll take anything I can get at this point. At the moment I’m looking at a mix of about 6 different meds, some prescription, some over the counter, that I need to try to keep track of here for the next few days. Ibuprofen, mucinex, my regular blood pressure meds. cholesterol, the tamiflu. etc.

Meanwhile I’m starting to feel guilty about doing nothing but sitting around doing nothing but watching stupid youtube videos and Netflix. I have a half dozen different projects in planning stages or ready to go, I have a new CNC machine that I should have unpacked and started to try to work with, new software I’ve been trying to learn. But it doesn’t pay to try to start any of that even if I felt halfway decent because I can’t really concentrate that well yet. Sigh…

MrsGF noted that this is the first time she’s seen me get this sick in, well, just about forever, really. Even during the many years I was working at the school district exposed to everything from colds and flu and plague for all I know, I managed to avoid coming down with any of it. I honestly have not had the flu or even a serious cold in decades. How I got that lucky I don’t know, but it makes getting hit with something this serious now even worse because I don’t know how to deal with it.

I really, really hope MrsGF doesn’t come down with this. So far she’s symptom free, thankfully. Maybe she’ll get lucky.

The ‘Ick’ Factor

I was reading an item over at AgWeb about what appears to be a growing interest in raising insects for animal feed <click the link to read the item>. Now you wouldn’t think that there would be any interest in feeding bugs to cattle. Cows, after all, are herbivores, they eat grass, grain. And they do. But cattle also need protein, especially if you want them to grow quickly for meat or if you want them to produce milk. Most rations for beef and dairy cattle both have some kind of added protein, often in the form of fishmeal or soymeal, but sometimes other types of proteins derived from animal sources. (Until the discovery of BSE (mad cow disease) including animal protein and bone meal derived from waste from cattle processing facilities was fairly common.)

In the US and EU feeding cattle insect derived proteins is illegal, but it is a common practice in other parts of the world, and there seems to be considerable interest in the practice. There are attempts to start up companies that produce insect proteins (usually some kind of larvae) specifically as a cattle feed supplement. There seems to be some justification for the practice. It would be relatively environmentally sound because the insects would be raised mostly on organic waste that would have otherwise been discarded. They can be grown in controlled, sanitary conditions. And there’s no doubt that it could produce feed supplements that would work just as well as other supplements.

But there has been some rather strenuous objections, especially in the US and the EU, over the practice. Mostly for reasons that aren’t really all that logical. This seems to be changing, but I suspect that many of the arguments against the practice aren’t due to logic, but to the ‘ick’ factor.

In Western cultures we’ve been raised to see insects as dirty, filthy, carriers of disease, to be disgusting, horrible things that should be killed on sight. We’ve been trained to be scared of insects rather than look at them as beneficial animals that have their own and very necessary niche in nature.

This kind of cultural

20110712-morcilla-cut-up
Yummy yummy blutwurst

conditioning takes place in all cultures, of course. Every society, every culture, has it’s own ‘ick’ factors. Heck, I probably eat things, and enjoy them, that would make you gag. Like blutwurst or blood sausage. And yes, it’s made with real blood. Headcheese, which isn’t cheese, but is made with heads. Raw fish…. And I’m sure you eat things that would make me shudder. My sister used to dip sardines in milk. I have no idea why. And yes, she’d drink the milk after.

I’ve always been fascinated with this ick factor, why some people are disturbed, even disgusted by some things, while others find the exact same thing not at all disturbing, even kind of nice. And with how it changes in individuals, including myself.

If thirty years ago someone had told me that I would one day love squid, octopus, raw fish, eel, I’d have questioned their sanity. But I do. If they had also told me that I would one day find chicken so disgusting that just the smell of it would make me retch, I’d have told them the same thing. But I do.

People are weird.