I used to think good bourbon kept the bugs at bay, that I could get vitamin C from screwdrivers, and that a little beef bouillon mixed with vodka provided my required dosage of protein. When I was unfortunate enough to get sick, I would drink hot toddies with copious quantities of brandy warmed and mixed with Gran Marnier, a dollop of honey and some lemon. I was generally a robust and healthy mixologist.
As most alcoholics do, I was simply fooling myself. Truth be told, all that booze probably didn’t help my immune system one bit. Furthermore, and if memory serves, I didn’t get sick any more or less frequently when Kochevar’s was my health care resource of choice. Hangovers were my most common malaise.
Having plugged the jug, I am much more aware of what I ingest. I know what I eat, I measure my hydration, my weight is more easily controlled and my head is—relatively—clear. This is all good stuff in the context of what I hope is a healthy and active lifestyle. In retrospect, it is a little surprising that I weathered those more, uh…holistic years as well as I did. Just lucky, I guess.
Sober clarity provides the opportunity to actively avoid illness and disease, as much as a man my age can. That is to say, instead of sitting in an airport bar sucking down bourbon and soda, for example, I now spend my time scrubbing my hands until they chap and rinsing with hand sanitizer. Anticipating my time in a tin can rife with contagion, I hydrate, cleanse and avoid obvious germ hangouts like handrails and door handles.
It doesn’t do any good. I’d have been as well served sucking down that bourbon…except for the hangover. Despite all my sanitary precautions, a recent flight on the biohazard express penetrated my heretofore healthy system.
Living up here at the head of the draw, I am not often exposed to the vast variety of germs that make themselves at home in our human congregation. No epidemiologist, I figure constant exposure to an assortment of virulent bugs better prepares an immune response. In other words, our clean mountain air serves to keep us healthy only if we stay there. The minute we expose ourselves to foreign viruses, or when visitors import those critters to our mountain fastness, we are bug bait. Katie, bar the door.
Thankfully, the bugs didn’t kick in until I had made it home to Crested Butte. My most distinct apprehension about air travel is that I will get sick in some distant and unsympathetic port. Not only would I have to endure the agonies of disease with no commiseration, I would suffer the condemnation of those I was unintentionally exposing to my obvious sickness. At home, only my cat would suffer exposure, and I’m pretty sure cats don’t get human disease.
Health care begins, and ultimately ends at home. Here I can shuffle a block or two to the doctor’s office and hope he can provide cure, comfort and solace. Alternatively, I can flop on the couch and read or watch television, and consume mostly worthless over-the-counter comfort and remedy.
Television provides scant comfort because the news is rife with information about widespread viral death and immunization that may be worse than the disease or altogether worthless. In the midst of the H1N1 pandemic, we continue arguing about health care reform and are continuously bombarded with advertisements about everything from erectile dysfunction to restless leg syndrome to…whatever.
It is no small irony that health care reform debate rages in the midst of the most virulent pandemic to impact our population in almost a century. Health care reform opponents should take a look around at a society sick on lousy diets and increasingly vulnerable to any formerly unknown and potent virus that comes down the pike.
They should consider the souls who don’t have a doctor a block away and who couldn’t afford him if they did. Those who like health care the way it is should check out profit margins of big pharma and health insurance providers. They should sit next to me in an airport when I’m spewing contagion.
Between bouts of coughing and on top of the pain of a swollen throat, I pray I haven’t fallen victim to what one friend calls “pig flu.” That eventuality might cause me to seek solace in warm brandy and Gran
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