This time around, it wasn’t ‘just the flu’

I couldn’t help but think about that sexy-villain-voiced character — a poorly disguised wolf in sheep’s clothing — featured in the Sanofi flu vaccine commercial they’re running again as flu season gets underway.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just the fluuuu,” the character purrs ominously as he prowls through various public places, making people sick and giving his reply to anyone who might ask, “But aren’t you linked to dangerous flu complications … ?” The wolf continues his prowl until he comes face-to-face with a determined hospital nurse who’s apparently repping the vaccine. She locks eyes with him until he turns tail and runs.

Each time I saw or heard the ad, I would just think about, well, how nice that actor’s voice is, while figuring he’s probably some Grandpa with a comb-over, beetling eyebrows and prominent ear hair.

Until the other Saturday, that is. That was a day I spent feeling weird. Bad-weird. And wondering if I had “just” the flu.

As the day wore on, I developed symptoms that resembled flu. But the feeling there was a little more to the story wouldn’t go away.

I wondered if it were possible that, after more than three years, my luck had worn out.

Ever since that fateful March 2020, covid-19 had hung like a dark, heavy cloud over the world, worming its way into our psyches and our vocabularies. We hunkered down those initial months, restricted to our homes as workplaces, schools, churches, restaurants, shopping malls and gyms were closed and special events canceled. We laughed at the funny covid memes and cried over all the lives tragically lost. We wore masks or refused to, and fought fiercely about it. We got the new vaccines and subsequent boosters or refused to, and fought fiercely about that. (As a co-worker remarked in writing years ago pertaining to what I seem to remember was a family event: “Accusations were made; feelings were hurt.”)

Through it all, Dre and I wore our masks and fogged up our glasses. We got all the shots that came down the pike and managed to avoid covid, covid’s mama, covid’s auntie, covid’s cousins and all its other relations.

So although we were concerned when we heard covid had reared its head via yet another variation in recent weeks and subjected a gaggle of people who knew people we knew to some discomfort, we weren’t too concerned. Covid had ceased to be the killer it once

was, and hey, we’d been living covid-charmed lives.

But that Saturday I had a feeling. And I knew I’d better take one of the home covid tests we’d been given by a local pharmacy.

I’d taken a handful of these tests before. They’d always resulted in one red line, in the “C” (“control”) area of the test. No red line in the “T” (“test”) area. If red lines appeared in both the C and T lines, that was an indication that the tester was positive for covid.

That night, for the first time, there were two red lines. It wasn’t “just the flu.”

My next thought: Well, could be worse. Could be a positive pregnancy test.

(I know. Should anyone ever invent a home “warped sense of humor” test … )

The fever, chills and fatigue lasted only an afternoon and a night. The sneezing, coughing, congestion and headache lasted a bit longer. The loss of taste came, and thank goodness quickly went, a couple of nights later.

Through it all, I didn’t even take a sick day. Working from home anyway, I had a few too many deadlines to meet. So I plugged away until the following Friday, when I took a PTO day for the principle of the dang thing.

That following Friday, by the way, was when we found out Dre’s luck had run out, too, after having been subjected to a covid-y wife in a tiny condo. He developed a cough Thursday night; I got “that feeling” again and tested him the next morning. Blessedly he didn’t suffer too badly either and was well on the mend as the column went to press.

Our previous vaxxes and boosters have been credited with saving us from rougher fates. I opt to give the Good Lord primary propers.

We’ll do what we did last year: Get our annual flu shot. Looks like we’ll also be getting what we got last fall: The latest covid booster.

’Cause dang, it may not be just the (sexy-voiced, wolfe-in-sheep’s-clothing) flu.