Flu Season Doesn’t Keep All Of Us Down

Neither Valentine’s Day nor Groundhog Day is the biggest milestone of February.

The big one is known as It’s End of Flu Season Day.

The bad news this year is that flu season started late, meaning kids began dropping like flies in mid-January, and flu season is expected to run late, meaning parents will be dropping like flies well into March.

Another nasty fact about this year’s flu season is that the shots most people took to fight off the bug won’t, in fact, fight off the worst of the little devils - a strain commonly known as the Australian or Sydney flu.

A cycle of winter flu can make you feel sicker than reading about Monica Lewinsky.

This year, the cycle is extremely rugged as many hundreds of families know.

Rather than dwell on the ugly details of what happens when you are in the express trot mode to the bathroom or the long-distance road to the spare bedroom to cough in solitude, consider this: Some people won’t get the flu this year.

Why? Is there a secret to good health in the midst of the green-faced masses?

I went looking for the secrets of people who haven’t had the flu.

First stop, Janice Olson, a consulting health nurse at Group Health Northwest in the Spokane Valley.

“No, I haven’t had it this year, but a lot of people in our office have,” the nurse said.

Her advice?

“Stay out of the crowds and don’t go to the doctor’s office if you can help it,” she said.

The doctor’s office is full of people really sick with the flu, she explained, so it’s a bad place for trying to stay well during flu season.

“And elderly people might even want to avoid going to church right now,” Olson added.

It may be God’s house, but it’s not flu-free.

The suggestion that we just stay away from one another as a means of fighting off disease points out the problem of combating not just the flu, but colds, AIDS, and all kinds of infections.

It sounds good, but few ever do it.

Can you imagine parents calling in to school saying they are keeping their kids home because they are well?

What would a boss say to an employee who called in well?

Well people want to go out on the weekend, to the movies, or dinner, or a show.

If anything, kids head back to school when they still have a little cough, and co-workers fill their chairs when still a bit under the weather.

That’s the way the culture works and results are usually measured days later when another dozen head home with the flu.

So, I went looking other places for people who didn’t get the flu this year.

I found Jill Herman.

She operates Lorien Herbs and Natural Foods on East Trent in Spokane.

“I can’t remember the last time I had the flu,” she said. “Maybe it was back in the mid-‘60s.”

At 73, Herman carries that rosy, bright-and-healthy look of someone who gets a good night’s sleep and doesn’t overdo sinful habits.

“Yeah, I generally attribute my good health to good diet, exercise, and pure living,” she said.

“I eat a lot of vegetables, some fruits, whole grains, no white rice, take a good multivitamin, extra calcium, extra vitamin C and gingko biloba (an herb) to help brain power.”

Herman never has had a flu shot and works every day around people coming in and out of her store.

The store utilizes ionizing air filtration systems and is lighted by full-spectrum overhead lights.

“I want my employees and customers to be as healthy as they can be when they shop here,” she said.

Herman’s good health suggests another reality of trying to fight the flu or other diseases.

Enduring personal health probably requires a style of clean living that extends to work, the household and the dinner table.

Jill doesn’t smoke, drink, or eat meat, either.

“I think basic diet and basic lifestyle are the keys to health,” the spry Herman said.

Nurse Olson doesn’t quarrel with that assessment.

“I don’t necessarily recommend any herbal treatments, but I do think vitamin C is important, along with plenty of rest, extra fluids and eating right.”

So there are the choices.

Sit home when you are well and enjoy it. Or live, eat and sleep right every day for your whole life.

Now we know why so many people get the flu.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.