Sick of Being Sick
...chasing a summer of open-air freedom and saltwater freshness
This is a dispatch from the other side of sickness - that deep, winter, recurring, incessant sickness. Except it hasn’t been confined to just the cooler months for us.
Between the four of us I am certain we have been unwell more weeks than we’ve been well this entire year. It has been brutal, exhausting, disruptive and isolating.
We know each illness makes our kids stronger and adults too but that doesn’t make the constant cancelling of plans, the rearranging of work and the scrambling to find childcare any easier.
We have neglected so many friends, missed out on catch ups with family.
The CSIRO says this has been the worst flu season on record for Australia, and worse still our children have made up 80% of those hospital admissions. Our family’s trusted GP confirms that. She told me on our most recent visit (yesterday, as I write this) she’s seen young families hit far worse this year.
Experts believe this is linked to a drop in vaccination rates, with less than 23% of zero to five year old’s vaccinated for flu, and only 13% of five to 15 year old’s vaccinated.
Before COVID-19 twice as many children in each category had received flu vaccines.
Could this be a flow on effect of the pandemic? Are families injection-fatigued after all those boosters?
When I tried to get our daughter’s second COVID booster no clinics I called were holding the children’s vaccine anymore. Flu jabs were readily available though, we all had one and I am certain that shielded us from the worst of it.
So as I pack away winter woolies like a scorned ex-lover leaving behind sick season trauma, I am flinging myself at spring.
Hungrily seeking brighter mornings, warmer days, open-air freedom and saltwater freshness.
We no doubt have plenty more germ-filled days in our young family’s future but I’m barrelling with tunnel vision into the warmer months in the desperate hope that what’s ahead has got to be better than what has been.
As published in Village Voice 2023