Go With the Flow or Get Run Over!

Hello, all! Okay, so… new perspective.

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I’m sitting here holding my sweet grandbaby. She’s just turned a year old. She had some vaccines the other day (Thursday): MMR, hepatitis and chicken pox. She’s been feverish and cranky ever since and now she has a pretty significant rash. On the doctor’s advice we’ve been giving ibuprofen, Tylenol, Zyrtec and Benadryl.

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What I’m thinking is how terrifying life must have been before all these things, before you had medicines to relieve their suffering when they caught the diseases we can now protect them from, unlike in the days when, if your baby popped up with a rash, you immediately began to worry how long you were going to have them with you and how much misery they were going to have to endure while you did.

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I can’t imagine having a child suffering from a disease like measles or any other serious ailment with no decent means of relief or comfort, to say nothing of any idea of a cure or a preventative.

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So many people right now are operating out of fear. Running to the store to stock up on what they can get while they can get it. This, I admit, I did today myself. I heard WalMart was completely out of the baby’s size of diapers in any brand, so I hurried to the dollar store to see what I could find. Thankfully, they had quite a lot of diapers, but not a lot in her size. I did find one case and purchased it. But I also bought some noodles and beans and crackers and peanut butter, milk, and things of that nature just because I thought they might come in handy. This is how this emptying of the shelves starts.

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I was trying to think of an analogy that fit and I think it’s kind of like we’re all on the highway. Everybody is going along at the normal speed. Then for some reason everyone starts going faster. So most people think, “Look at those crazy people, all speeding along! I’m not going to speed. There’s no reason to speed. I’m just going to keep it normal.” But then more and more people start speeding, and the general thinking becomes, “I’m going to get run over! I’d better stay with the crowd, even if it is scary to drive this fast!” So then you’re forced to speed right along with everyone else.

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I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t know if you really should just stay at the slow speed no matter what the rest of the traffic is doing, or if you’re truly endangering yourself by not going with the flow of traffic. I just know we are lucky, because we live in an age where there are preventative measures, because we know what causes things. We have meds to relieve suffering. We have hygiene. People need to be reasonable and NOT. PANIC! This is not the apocalypse. (Although it is still a bit disturbing because we now have a pretty good idea how our society would behave if it were, and in my opinion, it ain’t pretty.)

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Regardless, thank goodness for Amazon, because I ordered a month’s supply of diapers online before I ever went to the store. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t run out. Hmm. There we go again.

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Until next time,

D.