Whooping Cough!

So what does whooping cough have to do with Gluten-Free Travel?

Well, on my last trip out of town -- from Oregon to Palm Springs CA in February -- I was apparently tackled by the whooping cough bug, either on one of the two short plane rides or in the Eugene or San Francisco or Palm Springs airports. I was gone for five days total; two days after I got home, I came down with flu symptoms.

Three weeks later, after a few very scary coughing episodes, I was diagnosed with whooping cough and went on antibiotics. They helped, but it's been a long six weeks so far, and I'm just now starting to really feel better. Still exhausted and coughing some, but nowhere near what it was like when I literally couldn't catch my breath.

What I've learned lately:

--  I had DPT (diphtheria-pertussis (whooping cough)-tetanus) shots as a kid, but my immunity wore off.  Most folks my age just assumed we were safe. Nope. As we age, our immunity lessens.

--  Many of us get tetanus boosters only when we've had an accident, unless we keep track and get them on schedule, or are nagged by our doctors. From what I gather, only rarely are all three serums included in shots these days. We need to ask for them.

--  Many parents (enough, anyway) are very concerned about information of possible side effects, autism, ADHD, etc., that are anecdotally floating around the universe, and have not had their children vaccinated for many of the childhood diseases that were routinely handled with shots.

I am not a parent, so I can only imagine how difficult it is to deal with the overwhelming amount of information -- accurate, semi-accurate, and not-so-accurate -- that confronts us daily.  The impact of our choices is truly boggling, whether we choose to DO or NOT TO DO something.

--  As soon as I'm completely over this thing, I will get another booster. My fear of dealing with preventable communicable diseases is greater now than my fear of those possible side effects. I assume, for instance, that I don't have immunity from mumps, since I had it as a child and again when I was twenty.

--  Travel opens us up to wondrous opportunities, and exposes us to health problems, including new strains of old diseases. Ever vigilant must we be!


The bright side of this latest adventure is experiencing it from this side of the celiac fence, as it were. Because my immune system is not being bombarded with gluten, and my gut could tolerate the meds I needed to take, I wasn't fighting that battle on top of whooping cough.

I'm healing now. Hurray!