The Gripado

The Germs are Gonna Win, November 22, 2020
My Dad who worked in the pharmaceutical industry all his career
always tells me, “The bugs are gonna win.”
The antibiotics are wearing off in effectiveness. The germs are
mutating into stronger versions. The germs mutate by the hour. We
mutate by the millennia.
I had every disease you can get in the Upper Midwest USA back in
the 1950’s when I was a little kid. I had the mumps, measles,
chicken pox, stomach flu, strep throat, bronchitis, and the usual
colds. Somehow I survived.
In 1990 at the age of 38 I went to Belem at the mouth of the
Amazon River just south of the equator.
I caught dysentery (lost 30 pounds), food poisoning often (nothing
like sitting on the toilet with dysentery while throwing up in the
sink next to it. I think Belem hotel rooms are designed just for this
eventuality.)
But the worst disease I caught there was the Gripado. My Dad used
to talk about “The Grip” when I was a kid. Wasn’t sure what he
meant.
The Gripado is the worst cold you ever had. You can hardly breathe.
You feel like old asphalt as the steam roller goes over you one more
time. You sneeze. You cough. You have a fever higher than the
equatorial temperature. Your kidneys hurt. Your lungs hurt.
Everything hurts.
The Gripado is why I left Belem. Time to go back to cooler climates
and cleaner ones.
This Covid-19 is nothing compared to the Gripado and I’ve had
both.
TJM