After basically knocking on death’s doorstep with swine flu all day yesterday, I took my Tamiflu last night and woke up today fever-free. My body’s still weak and recovering, but I feel about a million times better. Normally when I get the flu, I’m feverish and praying for death for at least three days, and then my body takes another three or four days to fully recover from the trauma. The Tamiflu just stopped this shit right in its tracks.
And wanna know the dumbest part? I’d emailed my primary care doctor last night to ask for a Tamiflu prescription, before calling my doctor friend and asking her to call one in for me. My PCP wrote back this morning to inform me that I could not have Tamiflu, because she’d checked my health records and it looked like I was in perfect health, and Tamiflu is reserved for “high-risk” patients. Ummmm, dumb. First off, this woman has never even met me — she’s filling in for my regular PCP, who’s on maternity leave, and who’s only met me twice anyway. And the last time my regular PCP saw me was several months ago, when I had high blood sugar. So this woman scanned old records of me — records that indicate I am NOT in perfect health — and decided from that that there was NO TAMIFLU FOR ME? Dumb, dumb, dumb. This pill shortened the course of my flu by at least 3-4 days — days that I would have been entirely out of commission. How does it make any economic sense to not hand it out to EVERYONE? Why are we not converting our goddamn auto manufacturing facilities to pump out Tamiflu? Why is it not in the vending machines at every workplace? If this stupid pill has such a tremendous impact on this flu that’s knocking people out across the country for OVER A WEEK, how does it make economic sense to do anything BUT hand it out to anyone who asks for it, at any cost, no matter what? Especially since it’s apparently only effective if you take it in the first 48 hours of getting sick. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The economic impact of the seasonal flu is obviously going to be far greater than the cost of manufacturing more of this miraculous little pill and making sure people can access it immediately after experiencing symptoms. I need to be President. Actually, no. I need to be Supreme Leader. A democracy would just tie my hands, to everyone’s detriment.
Oh and also? I’m writing a novel this month. It may be a terrible novel that I never show to anyone, but it’s getting fucking written, dammit.
