Our region, as seen elsewhere is being given a heads-up that even before winter arrives, respiratory illnesses are on the rise. Not only have laboratory tests confirmed the earlier-than-normal presence of flu, but an increasing number of COVID infections, along with a third unusual appearance, that of respiratory syncytial virus, especially among young children. All hospitals are well over capacity, and are experiencing problems maintaining their emergency services, but our regional child-and-youth-centric hospitals are in a dire situation where they're asking general hospitals, themselves overworked and overcrowded, to admit child patients.

 

The public is being urgently urged to wait no longer in accessing flu shots and the COVID bivalent vaccine. Immunization is now available for children six months to two years in an effort to prevent the aggressive-spreading RSV virus from spreading even more. Vaccines are available through public health clinics on appointment, as well as doctors' offices and area pharmacies. We're just as glad we've taken action and updated all of our shots.

 

This afternoon, while we were in the ravine, we came across Nellie, whom we haven't seen in awhile. She was walking her dog Millie. Nellie was always kind of slightly built, but she's now rail-thin. Otherwise healthy, she assures us. Back in early spring of 1999 when COVID was beginning to have its worldwide impacts gaining its reputation as a pandemic, Nellie had just returned from a Florida trip with her husband when we came across them during one of our ravine hikes.

We wee already at that time seeing cases of COVID-19 all over North America. While Ontario wasn't doing too badly, Florida was being swamped with cases. I recall my unease as she enthusiastically told us about what an enjoyable time they'd had, how good it was to get away from winter  however briefly. I felt uncomfortable at her close physical proximity, as though she had no idea that prudent distances were being urged on people in their social interactions.

 

Her husband, I recall, was careful to stand back, courteously allowing us plenty of room between himself and where we stood. I worried for days afterward about that encounter, whether we might have been infected, waiting for symptoms to appear, but they never did. Eventually everyone gained more knowledge about best prevention strategies. 

The important one of course, was immunization, and Ontarians were pretty committed to being vaccinated, hoping to avoid infection, long before the entrance of the more infectious Omicron strain. Last winter, just entering the new year, we met up with Nellie. She was grim-faced as she told us her husband had died. A day after receiving his first vaccine, an Astra-Zeneca shot; she had been given Moderna, they had attended different clinics. Immediately that day he felt ill. It was known by then that reports were coming in that some people with heart problems were being adversely affected by some vaccines.

They called their doctor, he said rest was needed. A bad night followed and the morning hours had him so ill they called 911 and rushed him to hospital by ambulance. The attending doctor informed her later that her husband's heart had literally exploded. The team tending to him at the Heart Institute tried to save him but failed. This is not the kind of outcome that people anticipate can happen, trusting in science. But science can do only so much and people whose vital organs are compromised can be in dire straits when unusual things happen to place a burden of heavy strain on those organs.

 

A quiet conversation ensued between us. One of her sons still lives at  home and that's a support for her. She has always looked after herself; and she's doing that now, as well. What else can you do? she asks rhetorically. Millie no longer looks for the other half of her former companionship-trio. Whenever we come across her now and again, she appears to have retained her spirit of enthusiasm, even if muted. Nellie has done her best to absorb her loss but it's difficult. She smiles wanly, and we part.