health « over-caffeinated|dad

ANOTHER REASON TO HATE H1N1

PARENT: C’mon.
KID: Where are we going?
PARENT: I’ll tell you when we get there.
KID: Uh-oh – you’re taking me to the doctor, aren’t you?
PARENT: Why do you say that?
KID: Because that’s what you always say when you take me to the doctor.
PARENT: I do?
KID: Either that or the dentist.
PARENT: It’s not the dentist.
KID: I knew it! But I’m not even sick!
PARENT: I know, but it’ll be over before you know it. And then we’ll go for cupcakes.
KID: CUPCAKES!
PARENT: I thought you liked cupcakes?
KID: I do like cupcakes, but cupcakes after the doctor mean I have to get a shot.
PARENT: Not always.
KID: Yes always.
PARENT: No, sometimes we go for cupcakes even when you don’t have to get a shot.
KID: So does that mean I don’t have to get a shot?
PARENT: Unfortunately, no – it turns out the H1N1 vaccine you got last year takes two shots.
KID: That’s so unfair.
PARENT: I know. But I tell you what – after cupcakes, I’ll let you get one small toy at the toy store.
KID: NOOOOOOOOOOO!
PARENT: What’s wrong with getting a toy!?!?!?!
KID: Getting a toy after the doctor means they’re gonna use a big, huge needle. AHHHHHHHHHHH!

“I DON’T FEEL GOOD. CAN I STAY HOME FROM SCHOOL?”

Just because kids say they’re sick doesn’t mean they actually are sick. And while Teachers and principals will almost always tell parents to keep kids home if they have any question at all about how they feel, that isn’t practical.

(And it’s kind of laughable, too, because for most parents the fact that their kids learn something at school isn’t nearly as important as the fact that somebody else has to put up with their crap watch them for a few hours each weekday.)

So how do you know if your child really is too sick for school? All you have to do is ask your kids what sort of electronics they think they’ll be able to use later in the day, once they’re “feeling better.”

Electronics they say kids say they might be able to use:	chance they’re actually sick:
none	99%
TV¹, iPod	80%
Nintendo DS, Gameboy, PSP, games on cell phones, e-mail	50%
XBOX, Playstation	25%
Wii, texting or talking to friends on cell phone, online multi-player games	1%
Any of the above while electronically linked with a friend (or friends) who just happen to be home “sick,” too	0%

¹This mostly depends on what they watch — a Cartoon Network Marathon would raise suspicions, CNN’s The Situation Room wouldn’t.

REALISTIC NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

To go to the gym three days a week for two weeks, then once a week for the next three to five weeks, then three time a week for a week or two, then twice a week for one week before stopping entirely and resolving to resolve to go to the gym more next year.
To go on a diet until something happens to necessitate a massive intake of comfort food that will lead to the slow, steady return of the bad eating habits that become entrenched in 2009.
To talk about going on vacation someplace new and different, but then go to the same place as last year and the year before and the year before that because it’s easy and cheap and who needs the stress and uncertainty of a big trip anyway?
To buy a lot of books about getting organized, but never have time to read them, let alone utilize any of their tips and suggestions.
To spend more quality time with the kids, but only when its convenient and/or they’re not being needy, loud, destructive, insolent or pouty, which is probably never.
To be greener, but only in ways that don’t involve hardship, self-sacrifice or extra work because, let’s face it, the environment is important but there’s just too much going on right now.
To try to cope with the stress of modern life in a productive way, but eventually give up and just over-eat, drink an extra glass of wine or two each night, and take a variety of prescription medications.
To save more and spend less, unless there’s a really great sale.
To be anxious about the economy, health and well-being, work, family, marriage, saving for college and the future, but hopefully not all at once unless there’s a bottle of wine handy.
To come home after a difficult day at work and yell at the kids for no apparent reason, but then feel more guilty about it than normal.
To tell the kids again and again to “be careful” and then not be completely surprised when they aren’t and must be rushed to the emergency room for stitches and/or a cast.
To worry less about what other people think, unless those other people are the neighbors, selected co-workers or somebody we want to impress.
To find meaning and purpose in life, but then forget what it is thanks to chronic sleep deprivation, the never-ending demands of work and our household’s perpetual state of chaos.
To maintain a positive mental state, even though it still looks like we’re all screwed.

PAGING DR. GOOGLE

Google is great for finding the answers to obscure trivia questions, getting directions, locating the only a 24-hour-a-day pet walker in your neighborhood, etc.

But it’s terrible for health symptoms.

Search: bloody nose
See 1 to 10 of about 1,234,784, 987 results for “horrible wasting diseases.”

You’d think a program that’s sophisticated enough to be able to figure out what you really want to search for even when you type in the wrong word or phrase – “Did you mean most commonly misspelled words?” – would be smart enough to filter out (or at least de-prioritize) the rare, deadly, one-in-a-million diseases that always seem to pop up when you search for something minor.

Search: headache
See 1 to 10 of about 1,831,187,321 results for “things you shouldn’t worry too much about.”

But no.

Instead, you’re faced with a page of terrifying results.

(If not 10… 20… or even 30 pages of terrifying results, but who really knows since the information on first page alone is enough to make even the most anxiety-proof person pass out from a panic attack?)

All of which would be fine – even amusing – if a visit to the doctor’s office (or emergency room, if you’re really alarmed) offered relief.

But it doesn’t because even if your M.D. has to muffle a snicker when you admit you googled your symptoms and freaked out when you read the results, the closest thing you’ll get to being told you’re 100% healthy is a vague reassurance that “it’s probably nothing.”

Why?

Because doctors use Google, too.

Search: malpractice
See 1 to 10 of about 4,876,876,987,382,876 results for “multi-million dollar settlement for not spotting rare, deadly, one in a million disease in anxious patient.”

POLL: TIPPING FOR PUKE

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DO YOU REALLY NEED A HAZMAT SUIT TO HANDLE NUTS?

First peanuts, now pistachios.

It seems like salmonella is everywhere these days, making a lot of people equate eating a handful of nuts with playing a game of Russian roulette. But if you look at statistics, you realize you have just as much to fear from a cold winter’s day:

U.S. Deaths Per Year Salmonella
	600

Hypothermia
	600

Which means all those nut products you emptied out of the cabinets “just to be safe” are just as dangerous as walking out to the trash in bare feet and a t-shirt to throw them away.

It’s clear that worry served us well in our hunter-gatherer days when that rustle in the bushes really might have been something deadly, but what we seem to have now is the reaction without the rustle — we worry there might be a rustle and if there is, it might be something that could hurt us.

The problem is that “what it might be” is usually wrong — as anyone who’s ever googled a health symptom and then rushed into the emergency room knows:

YOU: So… how long do I have?
DOCTOR: To live?
YOU: Yes.
DOCTOR: I have no idea.
YOU: But I just read this particular flesh-eating virus is usually fatal within 72 hours!
DOCTOR: It is.
YOU: And?
DOCTOR: You have poison oak.
YOU: Oh.

Somewhere along the line we seem to have lost our perspective on worry. Which probably explains why more people are afraid of being attacked by sharks — which kill an average of 2 people per year in the U.S. — than they are of equally strange, but much more likely causes of death like elevators and escalators, lightening, bees, dogs and even Bambi:

U.S. Deaths Per Year Elevators and escalators
	30

Lightening strikes
	48

Bee, wasp and hornet stings
	82

Dog bites
	170

Deer collisions ¹
	223

In our defense, part of the problem is that we’re constantly reminded of the many things we have to worry about, with dozens of freaky possibilities brought to our attention every day by a 24/7 news cycle that loves to spotlight the odd and the unusual (without mentioning it’s also “the highly unlikely”).

Leaving us in a position of rushing off to the ER in a panic because we’re worried we might be one of the few hundred people killed each decade by the deadly whatever the Evening News just warned us about, when what we should be worried about is being one of the few hundred people killed each day by medical errors.

STAY HOME OR GO IN TO WORK?

Are you throwing up?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
Is your boss out for the day?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
Can you get your work done tomorrow?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
Can you get it done this week?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
Has it been more than a week since your last sick day?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
Is there something you could watch on TV instead?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
Is there anything else you’d rather be doing?	→	YES	→	stay home
↓
NO
↓
go in

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