A few weeks ago, I got my firstflu vaccineat the age of 36.
Before this year, Id never considered it.
A lot of things changed this year.
Lindsey and Charlie in early June
In January, my husband, Charlie, and I got the flu.
I took Charlie to the emergency room in the middle of the night on January 27.
Despite how sick I was feeling, adrenaline and the urge to protect him took over.
Charlie in the hospital in early February
Within 15 minutes of his intake in the ER, Charlie was put into a medically-induced coma.
In those 15 minutes, my world came to a screeching halt.
It turned out Charlie was no longer only dealing with the flu;this was pneumonia.
Charlie and Lindsey posing with their cat
But Charlies body apparently wasnt content withjustpneumonia.
A strep infection slipped into his bloodstream, spreading rapidly and poisoning every organ until he was septic.
One by one, his organs were dying.
I wouldnt wish the next 36 hours on anyone.
Three sleepless days pacing the waiting room and alternating shifts next to his bed.
And a doctor telling me to start making funeral arrangements so I wasnt blindsided.
Charlies mom made me go home for a few hours to rest.
A friend took me to urgent care.
She carried me from the car to the waiting room because moving hurt so much.
She encouraged me to go to the hospital but I refused.
We cant both be in there, I said.
Someone needs to be ready to bring him home soon.
I was running a high fever.
Nothing had sunk in.
As I recovered, everything started to hit me.
The person Id leaned on for more than half my life wasnt there.
I didnt know if he would be again.
Our friends left soup and Gatorade on the porch.
I refused to see anyone, paranoid Id send them to the hospital to die, too.
I slept on the sofa; it felt too strange to be in the bed alone.
Charlie was still in a coma when I got the all-clear to see him February 10.
And then waited a few days more for him to wake up and come back to me.
Id told him I loved him in the emergency room two weeks earlier as he went under.
February was a purgatory of waiting and tiny victories.
It seemed as if the longer the plan, the better his odds became.
One of his doctors asked him, Whats causing you pain?
and he pointed to me with a twinkle in his eye.
Thats the moment we knew his humor had come through intact and he was actively fighting to get better.
I rolled my eyes and went back to helping him work on holding a pen.
He liked to make the hospital staff laugh with inappropriately timed humor.
Charlie had lost 40 pounds, nearly all of it muscle.
But he was awake and stabilizing.
He had to relearn how to talk, how to hold a pen, how to feed himself.
In March, Charlie started physical therapy in the hospital to learn to walk again.
Hed been hospitalized for a total of 58 days.
There were two more months of physical therapy, in-home nurses, and weekly specialist visits.
In May, the thousand-yard-stare faded.
It was another week before he laughed.
You dont notice how frequent and important those little things are until they simply arent there.
He grew stronger slowly and surely.
He grew a beard.
He was smug about fitting into smaller pants.
We celebrated with ice cream when he made it around the block without a walker.
It wasnt until September that he was back at work full-time and said he felt like himself.
Everything about our life looks normal now.
Youd never guess that Charlie almost died a few months ago.
In an average flu season, more than 200,000 people are hospitalized.
Between 12,000 and 56,000 people will die.
Those numbers are easy to dismiss until it’s someone you love.
The rest could have been like usyoung, healthy.
Also, a record low number of adults got the flu shot last year.
A flu shotwont make you sick with the flu.
Hating needles is also not an excuse anymore.
This year,the nasal vaccine is backafter being off the market for two years for improvements.
Its efficacy is now on par with the shot.
Talk to your doctor about these things, and any other skepticism or hesitation you may be feeling.
Your health and the health of others is at stake.
If youre hesitant to get the shot for your own health, consider how it will benefit someone else.
Do it for herd immunity.
Do it for the people who would sit by your hospital bed.
Do it for the people who love you.
Dozens of people whod never bothered with a flu vaccine said that they got one because of us.
Because of our story.
Eighty thousand people last year weren’t.
Dont bet on luck.
