Vector

[learnteach]

Today, during the first class' egg drop (what a fun project! Great lead in to both space travel and car safety and materials engineering) I began to oddly cough. Big, deep cough from the top of my lungs. Strange. Also feel a little warm.

During the second class a parent left me a message: the student has symptoms identical to whooping cough. I was exposed to the student during the incubation period. I may have whooping cough.

It's not a bad disease...unless you are immunocompromised, under the age of two, or very old. So, I'm going to stay away from gatherings where I will meet those kind of people, and also track symptoms and get the vaccine.

No joke, 5 children have died of this. I hope I don't have it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20008713-10391704.html

Comments

[katanubis.livejournal.com]

For your sake, I hope it isn't whooping cough (pertussis). It can hang on for what seems like forever and the contagious phase is quite long. Not very many adults have taken advantage of the new to adults vaccine and so are at great risk. (And families which don't believe in immunizations should be quarentined away from those who do get their kids vaccinated. They spread it even to kids who have been vaccinated unfortunately.)

I had my pertussis shot (a once in adulthood thing, supposedly) this past fall. (It's part of the tetanus vaccine which most people need to have updated anyway.)