If you noticed a dearth of posts over the last few days, the reason is medical: on top of my sinus operation I got a really nasty case of flu, and have been flat on my back for four days. No email, no computer, not even any reading. I’m on the mend now, and should be back in fighting trim in a few days.
I’ve extended the kitteh contest (there are now many entries) to 6 pm (US) EST today, so bring out your cats!
Get well soon! 🙂
Thanks for letting us know. Rest up and get well!
Please get well soon Dr. Coyne!
As an asthma sufferer and cold/flu magnet, I give the following advice:
1. Get the flu shot every year (too late!)
2. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Take Nyquil (or equivalent) and make yourself sleep a minimum of 12 hours per day. 16 hours is much better. My doctor I had in my 20s told me: go home and rest! Of course I never did. When I finally really tried it in my 40s, guess what? It works!
Of course, the hospital where you had your procedure is the perfect place (in November!) to get the flu.
I don’t know how you flu has progressed (though 4 days flat on your back sounds really familiar to me!), but to those that have never had a real flu, I describe it thus:
Like the worst cold you can remember times at least 10, maybe times 100. Amazingly painful. Body aches like you’ve been thoroughly beaten with a steel rod all over. Fatigue that makes lifting an arm painful.
Ugh.
Get well soon!
+1 No need to be macho for our sakes.
I have only one bit of advice to add to JBillie’s: chicken soup. But, then again, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the properties of Jewish penicillin….
On the subject of vaccinations…my arms are both still a very little bit sore from Tuesday afternoon when I got the last of the hepatitis series of vaccinations (no longer do I have to worry nearly so much about a migrant farm worker’s hygiene habits) and Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis, which is now highly recommended for all adults as a booster for the series you should have gotten as a child).
All y’all out there reading this who haven’t had a non-seasonal vaccination in the past few years, I strongly encourage you to contact your doctors. See if you can get a Tdap shot, and see what else you’re eligible or overdue for. I don’t think I need to logically convince y’all of the importance of vaccinations, but I do suspect some cheerleading might be in order….
Cheers,
b&
But won’t I get autism?
You jest, of course. And, to be pedantic, you’re not gonna get autism from any vaccine.
But it’s important to know that there are risks associated with any medication, including vaccines. The important bit, of course, is that the risks associated with not taking vaccines vastly overwhelm the risks associated with taking them.
It’s just like food. Sure, you might food poisoning from eating food. But you’ll get much sicker still if you don’t eat at all. So, the wise person eats but takes precautions to ensure that the food isn’t tainted. Similarly, the wise person takes vaccines but pays attention to the warnings (egg allergies, previous adverse reactions, etc.) before rolling up the sleeve.
Cheers,
b&
Yes, I jest. And I got my Tdap boosters a couple of years ago.
Thanks for the advice on the tdaps. I seem to get some kind of nasty cut at least every 5-6 years and get the booster then. So I think I’m good.
I’ve been through the HAVRIX and Hep-B series (due to extensive overseas rough travel) so I’m covered there as well.
My yellow card is really long …
What I do is just get knackered, keep busy & go out without a coat. It cured my cold! But then I am a bit mad…
😉
I’ll second the endorsement of the flu shot. Yesterday I was feeling crappy and started running a fever — I figured I had the flu that my wife has had all week. But then by late evening I started feeling much better, and the fever disappeared.
I had the flu shot a few weeks ago. My guess is that my immune system kicked in, prompted by the flu-shot derived antibodies, and whipped the virus.
Today I feel close to 100% normal, and I walked to work even. Lucky me!
This happens to me almost every year: I get exposed to the flu; but it’s nothing much, just as you described.
Thank you for checking in.
Whew! I was worried the NCSE sent a hitman to take you out now that you’ve pointed out they’ve morphed into BioLogos… 🙂
Get better soon.
Kittehs will make u feel better.
No good, but glad to hear you’re getting it back in the road. I figured you were probably working on some mega-review.
To add to the other vaccine recommendations, when I had a physical recently it was recommended to get Zostavax (vs. shingles). Seemed like a good idea, and so I took the script to the pharmacy only to find that it’s back-ordered and not expected till January. Apparently there are (possibly chronic) production problems, so get in line ASAP.
Or get a National Health Service!
🙂
If only.
+ 1
X 10
Get well, Jerry!
My advice is to drink lots of Gatorade and watch lots of bad 80s movies. One of those two things worked for me last time I got the flu (coincidentally the last time I did not get a flu shot), and without proper scientific studies, I can’t be sure which one it was.
Feel better!
Terribly sorry. Get well soon.
No fair — no more entries! I figure I’ve got this won now. I’m a Bills fan and I’m tired of losing in overtime!
That needs to be in ALL CAPS, with lots of exclamation points!!!!!!!!! Otherwise, I don’t believe you.
Happy Cthulhu Day, Jerry and everyone.
Personal Failure said:
“My advice is to drink lots of Gatorade ”
Just keep avoiding the kool-aid.
Yeah, well, PZ was down for the count with his heart thing, and I don’t think he went more than 10 hours without a post. Glad you’re getting better.
I had H1N1 before the vaccine was widely distributed, and was out for 4 days. Friggin’ awful. Was that only last year?
P.S. The world should run on CST. Let’s show that midwestern pride!
Oh noes!! Just what happened to me after nose surgery (not flu, but head cold + sinus infection, which eventually required getting an adrenaline shot up my nose. With a *really* long needle). Having sympathy pains! :-((
Thanks for the update Dr. Coyne. Here’s wishing you a speedy and full recovery!
Get well soon
Hope your recovery is speedy. And, as if you didn’t already know, they are ripping on you over at The Panda’s Thumb.*
* Warning: contains heavy doses of Kw*k
Is it just me, or does Kwok have a cathexis about Ken Miller?
cathexis–what a great word to learn! Thank you!
Kwok has a lot of things, but I think the thing he really has a cathexis in is relentless named dropping and shameless self promotion.
I second Diane G.’s comment. A nice new word. Thanks!
Poor JC!
:'(
Cheer yourself up with the following –
Best academic article ever? Yes, it got published and it’s free to view. Well worth a look.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311997/?tool=pubmed
…& I have never come across this group before but they look interesting –
http://muslimrationalism.wordpress.com/about/
I have to admit I looked around for the rest of the article before I read it.
Wow! I’d love to hear an xian say that about the bible.
Actually, I believe that there are many xians who believe this, and some prominent ones [Spong] who pretty much say this.
Thanks for the best laugh I’ve had in quite a while.
I hope you did not bring back a strain of flu other than the one we are getting shots for this year. My wife is Comlombian and in all my trips to Colombia, eating in some places some might not care to, like on the beach way north of Cartagena and some outcountry joints cerca de Bogota,I only contracted the “Green Apple Two Step” once. Pretty strong; maybe like the bug the troops of Adm. Vernon and Lawrence Washington caught in 1741 causing theie Cartagena expedition to fail disasterously.
Galde to see you back in action.
Hope feel better soonest!
I am sure your peacock feather boots are lonely–send them to me and I will fondle them with great care.
When you get back to work, you’ll find a copy of WEIT for your signature (with stamped return envelope of course) — intended as a “holiday” gift for someone else. But no hurry. After all, what better way for godless secularists to carry out our “War on Christmas” than to be late for the “holidays.”
No problem; any particular way you want it signed?
cheers, jac
He lives! He is risen indeed! Glory hallelujah!
Erm…sorry. Got carried away there for a moment…’tis the season, you understand?
Anyway, welcome back — even if you’re just prariedogging.
How’re the chicken soup supplies holding out?
Cheers,
b&
a “for example” is included in a letter
Get well soon, Dr Coyne!
Dr. Coyne: Jesus is punishing you. 🙂
So glad you’re alive! Not good you’re unwell, but it’s good to see ye on the mend. Happy healing, and welcome back!
Greetings,
Respectfully invite your attention to the following musical restorative, with the occasional feline cameo:
Feel well soon, Jerry. (At least you’ve recovered enough to play on the interwebs in time for lots and lots of KITTEHS!)
Poor you, the flu sux. Cuddle many kittehs, it will help.
Oh, man–getting the flu on top of sinus surgery?! Hard to imagine anything more miserable.
I often think about the tyranny of keeping a popular blog continually infused with new material…not for the weak!
Get well soon!
Oops! I meant website. I meant website. I meant website…
(Or perhaps, “intellectual pub.” See Peter N, below…)
Maybe pubblog??? I like the sound of that word. Althoug it could never describe THIS place, as we all know, THIS is no blog.
Pubblog
Pubblog
Pubblog
LOL!!
Sounds like water going down a drain…
Kink sez “Poo on ur floo!”
You didn’t miss much. Oh, there was this little bug from Mono Lake, California that uses arsenic instead of phosphorous in its DNA backbone, but it’s only a little bug and arsenic, smarsenic.
Get some homemade chicken soup in you and you’ll be braying like a donkey in no time. Oh, you probably missed that bit of news, too. l8r
Ah yes… that new life thing– “life– but not as we know it…”
Us both and Butter kitteh (submitted) are all nervously prancing and each standing on three legs to get you over this hurdle.
Good thing you have a swarm of kittehs to help. It’s almost as if divine providence caused you to declare the kitteh contest when you did… well… not quite, but you know what I mean. 😉
Let me just say that it’s a pleasure to come here after listening to my co-workers explain how flu shots are a government communist conspiracy to make people sick.
Get well soon, Jerry!
We missed you!
Get well soon. We are eagerly awaiting details on the kitteh contest as well as your comments on NASA press release: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/12/02/life-redefined-nasa-proves-life-outside-of-earth-is-possible-with-new-microbe/
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/12/02/2010-12-02_one_america_two_planets_the_political_significance_of_those_arseniceating_bacter.html
Arsenic life form seems somewhat overblown. Here’s PZ take on the whole thing.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arsenic-based_life.php
PS Get well soon Jerry. We miss your insight and you ease of communicating with teh rest of us.
Get well soon! I want to know what this “arsenic and old lake” NASA press conference was all about.
I would like to chime in and wish you a speedy recovery — ain’t the immune system grand! — and there’s something I’d like to share…
Jerry, having noticed that your articulate, witty, informative, and challenging posts had suddenly stopped, and observing that I was checking here, and at Ophelia’s, and PZ’s, several times a day for any news (really hoping all those fried plantains hadn’t done you in), I discovered something about myself. WEIT has become kind of an intellectual home for me, or rather, an intellectual pub. I realized that I think of you and your circle of regular commenters as my friends. Every blog has its regulars, and even though I read (and comment at) quite a few, none of them feels so warm and comfortable as this one, even when people are disagreeing with me! Missing new posts, and not knowing what had happened, actually made me feel anxious. So Jerry, just so you know, you really make a difference, on both an intellectual and personal level. You have brought together a cool bunch of people — thank you!
I now return you to my normal crusty persona.
Ah, the warm glow of a pint – er, sorry, of humanity – is flowing through me!
😉
Get well soon!
Or, as I like to say, get wellies soon.
They keep your feet dry.
😉
All good wishes for your rapid recovery.
Why didn’t you get the flu vaccine?
One Floo, Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!?
Just kidding, just kidding. Get well!
Oy. Gute Besserung!
Hope you’re recovering well, Dr Coyne. For your enjoyment, consider this NPR bit on sinus surgery I heard a few weeks ago:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130242857
Thanks for that link…I may continue to wimp out…