I'd describe influenza (the "real" flu) as feeling like getting run over by a truck. It happens out of nowhere, and you just can't do anything but lay there and feel horrible (and probably cough a whole lot). After several bouts with influenza over the years, I finally wised up and now get the vaccination every year. It doesn't always work--there was a poor match in 1999 and it DIDN'T work, but most years I'm influenza-free. If your influenza type (usually docs look at the CDC website or get updates from a county health department and base their diagnosis on what's prevalent in your area) is susceptible to one of the anti-influenza drugs AND you've gotten to the doc within about 24 hours of onset of symptoms, then the drugs cut your time spent just laying in bed because you are too weak to do anything else from 7 days to about 3 days. They don't do much for the weak, shaky recovery period other than start that recovery sooner. Right now, most H3N2 strains (the ones most commonly in circulation) are resistant to Amantadine (Symmetrel) but still susceptible to Tamiflu/Relenza. How long until the flu strains develop resistance to those is unknown. Bottom line: Get the vaccination every Fall, unless you are allergic to something in the vaccine. It's better than spending 7 days in bed too weak to get up except to go pee, better than spending 7 days in a hospital bed delirious with a high fever too weak to get up except to pee, better than losing 20 pounds in 5 days because your body is just burning itself up (NO, influenza is NOT a good diet plan...), better than spending 2 to 4 weeks slowly recovering and regaining your strength, better than getting bronchitis along with it and coughing for months, better than getting a secondary pneumonia infection--get the picture? Lisa

Happy Holidays to Elizabeth and all! Thanks again Elizabeth for the early Christmas gift of your wonderful cuttings! I am trying to hang in there with them. One down unfortunately (salmon perfection, RIP) but I remain vigilant ;) -weebay

Good Grief...you have had your hands full, on top of far too much this year! I sure hope things settle down so you can enjoy the two big holidays, and end this year on a GOOD note! 2011 has really been a bad one, worse than I can remember in a long time, for so very many people. This must be the year of Murphy's Law. I hope your son is ok. Scary to have someone so young with high blood pressure and enlarged heart. Tho that seems more and more common with young athletes now too. I am glad the you got him to doc to find out what's going on. He will always be your baby, I've found age doesn't matter one bit. (my Jason will be 39 this Nov, but he is still mine.) Isn't it funny how we worry so much about them when they are LITTLE, and end up getting grey hairs and more worry just when we least expect it!! Being a Mom is sure a tough job, huh? I can't imagine keeping a Pug on crate rest....but I bet its very similar to keeping a Whippet on one. I'm not sure who's more miserable, them or us. LOL. I hope you and Remi get thru this, and poor Mickey having heartworm. When things settle down you definitely NEED some Me Time. Be good to yourself. I wish I could offer some help, but only have prayers and a shoulder to cry on (email anytime). When you feel like screaming, DO it. Take a pillow, go out in the yard, and yell into it till its all out of you! (Screaming in the house just upsets the dogs, LOL.) Hang in there, Girl. hugs, Karen

My grandmother did not get into Horchow very often, nor did she buy her clothes at Neiman-Marcus. She made lye soap. She washed her clothes in it and those of my grandfather, their 8 children and many of her 56 grandchildren. She cleaned the butcher house with that lye soap, a house where certain things occurred that some of the delicate-minded would consider murder, but it was survival, food for building muscles for those who worked hard, so that they could live. Fortunately, for her she did not live long enough to witness all this PC madness. She died from working in the cotton fields that had been sprayed with insecticides, bathing with lye soap and putting gray wash water on her garden. They farmed hundreds of acres and since there was not enough water from the pots that held gray water, my grandaddy transported water via horse and buggy. Poor horses. They were fed food from all those fields that were treated with insecticides. He too, died, before all this madness. My grandmother died at the tender age of 89 from emphysema and incidentally she had never smoked, was not married to a smoker and none of her children smoked, and none of their friends back then smoked. They were very pious and pure, no alcohol and no tobacco, and had no idea about drugs. My grandfather was killed by a young protester, high on pot, who lost control of his vehicle, and hit my little grandaddy as he was driving to start his day and open up his little neighborhood grocery store that he had been running for years, when at the ripe old age of 99, he died. It's a shame they used all those insecticides and lye, or they might have lived to see the downfall of this country.