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Some are so thick you can’t offend them.
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The closest we’ve come to Stephen King’s Captain Trips flu virus in his fictional, “The Stand.”
Historical accounts are chilling. Entire families wiped out, children orphaned as young healthy adults were were the prime target that hit in the flu’s deadly second wave. The flu apparently caused a cytokine storm among young healthy people. The result was that flu stricken patients would die in a matter of hours or days from pulmonary consolidation and subsequently to multiple organ failure.
Although this year’s H3N2 is not the same beast, as an RN in a progressive care unit at a VA hospital I witnessed an older vet go into sudden respiratory failure from the flu. He was talking to us as we admitted him, several hours later he was flailing around in bed, unable to breathe, lung sounds were minimal. He had to be intubated and moved to ICU on a ventilator. Chest xrays showed total white where his lung fields were. Scary stuff.