J. D. Porter

You and I spent the final days of the year 2025 battling the Flu. We tested positive the day after Christmas when I felt like I had some symptoms, but you had been feverish and crabby for days. Grandma noticed that you had mastered the technique of wiping your nose by dragging your arm across it resulting in a crusty mucous buildup on your forearm. Your mom had been sick for a few days, as well. We had all been in close proximity for the Christmas holidays, but we were all vaccinated against the flu. I figured you just had a cold. We tend to blame your daycare environment as the incubator for such things, but who knows where it came from?

On Friday evening, the day after Christmas, I began feeling bad enough to use a home test kit for COVID and the Flu. The good news was that it was not COVID (which can be deadly in old folks like me). The bad news was a strong positive test for Influenza A. Your mom and dad tested you a few hours later and you also tested positive for the same strain of Influenza. You were way further along in the process because you had been feeling bad for days. You seemed lightly affected and were almost finished. My ordeal was just beginning. It would be several days before my runny nose, cough, sinus pain, and general malaise would subside. During your episode, you wiped your nose with your arm and went about your business fussing at anyone who got in your way. I spent 5 days inside the house, resting in my recliner, taking cold medicine and long naps, and tenderly dabbing at my sore nose with tissues.

We are both fortunate that we live in a time of vaccines, antibiotics, and knowledge of how to deal with the flu. You seem to have come through it unphased. As for me, I am still struggling with a sore throat and fatigue five days after I tested positive.

During the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, people had little more than superstition and luck to help them. It started like any flu with a cough, headache, chills, and fever, but it proved far more deadly than anyone expected. It broke out in early 1918 and quickly spread to nearly every part of the world. In some remote places, entire villages were wiped out. October 1918 became the deadliest month in U.S. history when 195,000 people died from the Spanish flu. It seemed nothing could stop it. But it finally ran its course. Nearly one hundred years have passed since this epidemic rocked the world. It seems ironic that this disastrous event is memorialized in a children nursery rhyme that was sung while skipping rope:

I had a little bird, its name was Enza, I opened the window, and in flew Enza.

Here’s to a healthy 2026. Happy New Year. Little Buddy!