| A well-loved and highly respected woman in the SCA out in California fell ill at an event held on Labor Day weekend. She was hospitalized on the 15th. The diagnosis, a WEEK later, was H1N1 - swine flu.
They took her off life support yesterday. She's gone.
Her lung collapsed and her kidneys completely failed within a month. This was a woman who fought in the SCA, both heavy list and fencing. She had been knighted for her skill and recently was awarded another peerage for her service. Just as a note for people unfamiliar with the SCA; those who receive knighthoods for heavy list fighting, male or female, are not exactly known for their weak constitutions. They have proven themselves capable of moving with superior speed and skill while wearing suits of armor that can weigh up to 120 pounds. She was healthy and strong a month ago. Today she's dead.
I strongly urge you to read the full blog which describes this poor lady's symptoms as they developed. My suspicion is that what actually killed her was IGNORANCE. First of all, why did it take them a FULL WEEK to come back with a diagnosis of swine flu? Doctors and hospitals KNOW this shit is coming. They should be prepared.
Secondly, note in the blog that they state that she had a reaction to "a codeine medication". This was probably Tylenol with Codeine. On this note, read the second link.
Treating H1N1 as ordinary flu, especially with certain drugs, can make the problem worse. This is what happened in 1918, when antibiotics were nonexistent and aspirin was a new treatment for fever. What killed most of the people who died from the 1918 flu was not the flu itself - it was treating them with ASPIRIN.
The purpose of a fever is to heat the body so much that viruses and bacteria will die. By treating the fever without attacking the invasive virus/bacteria, you nullify the body's natural defenses, the infection runs wild, and PEOPLE DIE.
The reason I can speak with a certain amount of authority about the H1N1 swine flu and it's effects is that I am very familiar with them. While stationed at my first and only duty station in Germany, I was frequently very sick with either bronchitis or bronchial pneumonia. I was never prone to either of these until I was stationed overseas, and originally thought that it was because I was allergic to something there. However, the problem followed me home and from 1992 until 2003 I continued to get bronchitis and bronchial pneumonia regularly. This was because even after I left the Air Force, I continued in civilian life to get a flu shot every fall.
While in the Air Force, every November I was injected with a mandatory annual flu shot, which I was told was to work against "Russian Type A Flu". Googling this will get you many hits on H1N1 - it's the same biological weapon that came out of Fort Dix in 1976, although (of course) it was being blamed on the Russians in our neck of the woods.
For the entire duration of my assignment in Germany and for many years after that, I could never simply catch a cold. Anything that even remotely resembled a cold would blossom into sinusitis or bronchitis, and if I ignored this into bronchial pneumonia, within the week. It got to the point later in my civilian life that if I got a stuffy nose, I'd wait exactly three days and then make the appointment, because I knew by the fourth day I was going to be coughing stuff up and the doctor would give me antibiotics.
I have documented elsewhere the incident in November of 1989 where I came down with bronchial pneumonia while assigned a garbage detail. After two days of trying to tough out outdoor duty in the dead of a viciously cold German winter, I finally broke down and reported to sick call. I was treated like a malingerer and ignored for so long that the fever broke over the three and a half hours that I sat shivering and sweating in the waiting room. When I finally was seen by a doctor, he snorted in disgust because now there was no fever, and ordered me to pick up a prescription at the window. The prescription was for aspirin.
My own disgusted reaction, which was to crush the paper in my hand and throw it across the room, probably saved my life.
When I reported to sick call the following day I was treated quickly with professionalism and compassion and given antibiotics, which solved the problem.
When I was outprocessing the Air Force, I was handed my medical charts by a doctor and noticed a new stamp on my file that said "MK-ULTRA". It was next to the other compartmentalizations on my clearance, and I recognized the term from having seen it on the system I administered. I asked what it was, and the doctor looked embarrassed and said "Um, it's something that shouldn't be there. I'll take it off." He refused to tell me what it was. I knew what my other compartmentalizations meant, so the fact that I hadn't been told about this and the doctor's cageyness caused the incident to stay in my memory. I later found out that MK-ULTRA was the project name for unauthorized experimentation that has been done on members of the US military since the 1950s.
In 2003 I stopped taking the annual flu shot, and I also stopped getting bronchitis and pneumonia on a regular basis.
I make a habit of eating a wedge of stilton cheese at least once a month. I like stilton, for me it's a "comfort food", but after catching the bronchial foo that was going around the CodePink house in DC a few summers ago I discovered that it could also save me a copay and prescription fee. I had come down with the foo on a Friday and was not going to have access to my doctor until Monday. I ate a wedge of stilton and the stuff was completely gone by Monday. Stilton's unique flavor, as I discovered by happy accident, is provided by a helpful little critter called penicillum roqueforti. :)
A word to the wise... if you get the flu this season, do not treat the fever. Let it run it's course unless things get dangerous (in which case a doctor should already be involved, of course), and keep the presence of natural antibiotics in your diet high throughout the flu season. If you are not allergic to penicillin and don't mind the flavor, a wedge of stilton (or roquefort, or bleu) a month will keep the doctor away. Honey is also good, especially manuka - highly antibacterial. Antibacterials won't do anything to combat the virus, of course, but it will help a great deal to avert secondary infections.
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