When you've got flu in the house...

... of course you should protect those near and dear to you. Even if they're stuffed animals. :)

We have been battling the flu, or something very like it. If I had a magic laundry basket I'd put it into play, too.

While we're on the subject of germs, this week (just before the flu hit) at the post office I ran into a friend we hadn't seen in a while. He asked how my husband was doing. I said he was still on oxygen 24/7 but otherwise pretty good. We live near the post office, so I suggested that the friend stop in and say hi and see for himself. So he walked home with me, and I left the gents to get caught up with each other. I guess the visit was going pretty good until the friend mentioned that one of his kids was really sick and might have whooping cough, and they were waiting to see if the family was going to have to be quarantined.

I wasn't there, but I understand that right about then the friend had a classic "oh, my goodness, what am I doing?!?" moment. And then he left, rather hastily, from what I understand, apologizing as he went out the door. He is not, you understand, someone who would visit someone with lung problems if he'd remembered that little detail beforehand. For that matter, I'm not sure he'd have visited healthy people if he'd remembered that little detail beforehand. We just kind of got carried away because we hadn't seen each other in a long time, I guess. It just took a while to get from "Hey! Good to see you!" to "What's happening at your house?" Oops.

Since I'm already self-quarantining as much as possible because of the flu, it's kind of like serving consecutive sentences. As these things go, in other words, it's pretty good timing. Unless of course we were incubating flu at the time of the gentleman's visit, and sent that home with him... (Yarg. This time of year and illnesses! Yarg.)

Did you know that cases of whooping cough have been surging in recent years?