by Xavier Kataquapit
www.underthenorthernsky.com
I’ve had a busy few months of meeting so many people I haven’t seen in a long time. This year has been the first time I have been around so many people and it is a big change for me. I thoroughly enjoy it and have had lots of fun but with all the running around, I’ve caught several colds and flus over the past few months. In January, I caught a minor bug that I easily got over but it left me with a long-lasting cough that lingered for five months. It took plenty of treatment and doctor visits before I got over that.
This past week, I caught the worst flu yet. It came on slowly and I felt energetic and well enough to move around but I developed a bad cough. I had to get treated for the cough, and once it subsided, I developed body aches and headaches that kept me in bed. The strangest part of this flu was feeling better after a few days. I thought it wasn’t that bad and that, as quickly as I caught it, it was already over after three days. Unfortunately, that was false hope, as the second wave hit me all over again, this time with a bad cough, sneezing, body aches, and a terrible headache. It took another week for those symptoms to subside.
Before the start of the pandemic, my partner Mike was diagnosed with a chronic lung disease and to help deal with this condition, we took part in a lot of precautions to keep him safe. Around the same time, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic began to take off and from then on, we took every precaution we could so Mike wouldn’t get sick and I wouldn’t get ill either. It meant we began completely isolating ourselves from the world. We stayed in contact with everyone and saw people as often as we could but only in carefully organized meetings outdoors, in the open air.
I don’t take as many precautions as I once did but those years of doing our best to isolate taught me to be more careful in public spaces. It may not prevent me from getting ill during flu season but at the very least, I can do my part to avoid spreading illness to anyone else. I keep a supply of face masks, and when I had a cough, I did my best to stay away from others while also using my mask when I had to be around other people. The lesson of the pandemic is not so much how to completely prevent contagious disease but rather how to do certain things in public so that any new illness won’t spread as far or as fast.
Health care organizations and doctors have announced that flu season arrived early this year and it is a bad one for many people. According to FluWatch+, Canada’s national surveillance system for influenza, COVID-19, RSV, and other seasonal respiratory viruses, flu cases are increasing earlier now than they were at this time last year. If conditions and cases continue, it will mean flu season is starting much earlier this year.
The flu may not mean much to many people who believe the yearly cough is just something we’ve always had to live with. My experience with my partner’s health and the knowledge we accumulated about these diseases has really changed my perspective. Lung infections from viruses and bacteria can lead to lifelong conditions if they aren’t treated. Infections also have the possibility of leading to chronic conditions like a permanent cough, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and in more serious cases, can lead to Pulmonary Fibrosis or Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD).
Now that flu season has started, do your best to protect yourself from infection. Wash your hands often in public and be mindful of what and where you touch. If you end up around others who are sick, wear a mask to prevent or delay infection. If you do end up with a cough, do your best to stay away from others and if you can’t, wear a mask.
The annual flu has become a serious health risk for many people, especially in the Native community where there is a higher prevalence of those with heart disease, lung disease or diabetes. Pre-existing health conditions put Elders and those with weak immune systems at risk of complications or worse. As I watch many of my northern Elders grow older, every flu season is another time I worry about people catching a bad flu that could lead to serious health conditions or emergencies.
Everyone should take every precaution they can to first prevent infection and secondly to slow the spread of these diseases. If we all do our best to protect ourselves and others, we will see far fewer of our weakened loved ones negatively affected by this year’s flu.
