Medium Article: Why I will get my fly shot every year (or at least until don't)

Medium Article:  Why I will get my fly shot every year (or at least until I don't)

Francesca Olguin 

In Humans and Viruses, we talked about the public’s varying stances on vaccination.  Of course, I scoffed at anti-vaxxers, baffled by their arguments and distrust in the public health system. That is until we discussed an even more dangerous group of people, the vaccine-avoidant.  It was then that I realized that I was one of these people; I am the biology major, the virology student, and the anti-anti-vaxxer that didn’t get my flu shot...  

This story begins with a lovely day in April of 2019, I had just gotten home from Arizona for Spring Break and the quarter had just began.  It was my 23^rdbirthday and I had been organizing the festivities for weeks. To start the day, my roommate and I planned a long, 6-mile run. We had both been running 6-8 miles four times a week, so I was surprised by a massive wave a fatigue around mile 4 that was so bad my roommate had to run home, get the car, and come pick me up at the Dish.  We chalked it up to lack of sleep or dehydration and went on with our day.  I felt completely healthy the rest of the day until my birthday dinner at Pizzeria Delphina.  One minute I was enjoying dinner and wine with friends, and the next I was begging my roommate to drive me home because I was feeling so unwell.  There it began, my week-long run in with The Flu.  Until that point, I am not convinced I have ever really been sick with the flu, only bad colds.  My mother was quite strict when it came to vaccination and my job at the hospital during my undergraduate degree made me get vaccinated yearly.  Throughout November and December, there never seemed to be a good time to get the vaccine; there was always an excuse or somewhere to be. 

As the days progressed and 103-degree fever was showing no sign on waning, my dad arrived to take me to urgent care where a positive flu test prompted a very interesting discussion.  My doctor gave me the option of trying the anti-viral Tamiflu, though he was not sure if I would respond to the course since it was day three/four since the onset of my symptoms.  When you feel that sick and your head is spinning from a high fever, you’ll agree to anything with even the slightest chance of making you feel better; I barely noticed the doctor trying to explain that it may have been too late for the Tamiflu to help.  In retrospect, it was too late for the Tamiflu to aid my immune response.  It must be taken either as a prophylactic or within the first 48-hours of infection and is only shown to maybeshorten the course of infection by one or two days.  The timing of Tamiflu treatment perplexes me; it is incredibly difficult for a patient to get themselves from the couch to their bedroom those first few days of infection, let alone to a doctor.  I cannot help but think that most patients do not make it to the doctors in this 48-hour window. Yet, they will receive a prescription for Tamiflu regardless of whether it will work because they want to feel like they are doing something, anything, to make themselves feel better.  So regardless of whether Tamiflu is actually helping patients, Genentech is still cashing in on sales.  It is a brilliant strategy from the big-pharma perspective, especially given the questionable effectiveness of the product.  Furthermore, in my experience the Tamiflu side effects may outweigh the potential benefits.  The only thing Tamiflu did for me was kick me when I was down; adding severe gastrointestinal symptoms and vomiting to the already unbearable influenza symptoms.  

In the end, I survived the flu. This course helped me understand every aspect of my influenza viral infection, from the moment I did not get the vaccine to recovering from the illness.  The onset of the symptoms was rapid, reflecting the rapid viral reproduction in the respiratory tract, and the fever was caused by the immune system raising my body temperature in an attempt to inhibit viral replication. When I first got over the flu, I thought to myself, “you are getting the damn shot every year, no excuses.” Then a few months passed, and these thoughts were all but forgotten. This seasons influenza vaccine was released and my roommate and I made loose plans to get vaccinated that fell through weekly. Finally, we mustered up enough initiative to go to Vaden to get the vaccine.  I know how important influenza vaccination is and know the devastating impact it can have on my life, but boy is it annoying to get that shot.  

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