Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir

exp. – better to prevent than to fight or an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

While I feel like I’ve touched on this phrase before, this week I truly learned this lesson the hard way. I wasn’t feeling well, which made me realize I hadn’t gotten my flu shot yet so I rushed to the pharmacy to do just that. This was my first mistake. I told the pharmacist I didn’t feel well to which she replied, well it takes two weeks to take effect so you may still get the flu. Jokingly I said, well at least I won’t get it again after that. Turns out this wasn’t funny.

I don’t think of myself as a hypochondriac, but fortunately I’m not often sick. So when I am, I can go from ill to dying within hours. The following day I was in urgent care sweating and almost crying explaining all my symptoms to a rather unsympathetic doctor relatively disgusted with me for getting the flu shot when I already wasn’t feeling well. You see I reversed the natural order – not feeling well, flu shot, doctor, vs. doctor, flu shot to prevent not feeling well. He seemed more interested in whether I was pregnant or going through menopause – too old for the former, too young (I hope) for the latter, but he did ascertain that I was dehydrated (probably from the loss of fluids due to the fever) and had some sort of “unspecified viral infection.” He told me to let him know if things got worse.

Well the next day they did. I thought my head was going to explode. I had a cough, dry throat, clearly a fever. I was weak, dizzy, nauseous, in other words an utter and complete mess. So I made a second trip to urgent care. This time it was another doctor, much more sympathetic as far as I’m concerned because I give him credit for single handedly saving my life. It was so simple, ibuprofren to bring the fever down, a prescription cough suppressant and a prescription flu medication. I went from a fever of 103 to 98.7 within hours, slept without sweating and awoke feeling almost cured.

Of course all of this came at a price and it was a rude reminder that I’m not in France anymore. My total for my subscription medications was almost $100 – that was for all two of them! And the pharmacist gleefully pointed out that I had actually saved $70 on one of them because of my insurance. While I just had what I’m guessing was some version of the flu, I can’t imagine suffering through it without relief and to think of the far graver maladies people have to suffer through because they can’t afford health insurance is eye opening to say the least.

So to end with another French expression that mirrors the English one, ne remettez pas à demain ce que vous pouvez faire aujourd'hui – don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. I should have gotten my flu shot months ago before flu season hit. But mistakes are to learn from and to blog about.