LAST YEAR, THE FLU PUT HIM IN A COMA.

Reprinted from npr.org BRAM SABLE-SMITH Editor’s Note: We have all heard the excuses – “I don’t have time.” “The only time I ever get the flu is when I get the shot!” “It only works for 20% of the viruses.” “Can’t afford it.” “That’s just for kids and old people.” Well, its time to stop the nonsense. Read on….then go get the shot!
Charlie Hinderliter wasn’t opposed to the flu shot. He didn’t have a problem with vaccinations. He was one of about 53 percent of Americans who just don’t get one. “I figured [the flu] was something that’s dangerous to the elderly and the young, not somebody who is healthy and in their 30s; turns out, I was wrong,” he says. An estimated 80,000 Americans died of the flu, or flu-related complications, last winter, according to initial estimates from CDC presented in September. It was the highest number of flu-related deaths in decades, and Hinderliter was nearly among them. Now, after 58 days in the hospital, a week in a medically induced coma, two surgeries and three weeks in a nursing home, he’s speaking out to encourage everyone to do something he’d never done before: Get a flu shot. “We were really worried” Hinderliter came down with the flu back in January. His wife got it too, but for Hinderliter, there were other signs of trouble. He had a high fever, his heart rate was up and most concerning, his blood pressure had plummeted. Nurse practitioner Megan Fjellanger realized there was something really wrong. “You looked terrible,” Fjellanger told him. “We were really worried about you.” Fjellanger recommended he go to the emergency room. By the time he got there, his organs were failing. His flu had led to pneumonia and then to sepsis, a life-threatening complication from infections that can cause organs to fail. Hinderliter was put into a medically induced coma for over a week. His father and brother flew in from out of town and were told they may need to say goodbye. Many flu-related deaths are caused not by the flu itself but by secondary infections and complications, including pneumonia and inflammation of the heart, brain or muscle tissues. And the flu can increase the risk of having a heart attack, according to a study published earlier this year. For Charlie Hinderliter, life did get better. He left the hospital in March and spent three weeks rehabbing in a nursing home — the same nursing home where his grandmother was being treated for advanced dementia. It was not an experience he had expected to have. “The family members that came to visit got a twofer. They got to visit me and her,” jokes Hinderliter. On April 16th, two days before his 39th birthday, he got out of the nursing home and went home for the first time in three months. He started driving again in May, started working part-time in June and got back to the office in August. Slowly, life is returning to normal for Hinderliter, except for one thing. In September, for the first time he can remember, he got a flu shot.