Three Lessons the Flu Taught Me This Week

No, the flu vaccine did not fail me — and a few other things I need to get off my chest.

A week ago, I woke up to my son standing over me before the sun was up. No words. Just tears streaming down his face, clutching his throat, silently screaming. I put my hand on his forehead, and it felt like the outside of a whistling tea kettle…

In my gut, I knew instantly that it was the flu. It got us at the tail end of the season. Just the day before, I’d been looking at wastewater trends and noticed flu B activity was up in our area, and in many parts of the US.

There are two main types of influenza that drive seasonal flu in humans: influenza A and influenza B. Flu A often hits earlier in the season and is responsible for many of the largest outbreaks. It’s also the type associated with pandemic potential because it infects both animals and humans and can undergo major genetic shifts. Flu B circulates almost exclusively in humans, tends to be somewhat milder on average (though try telling that to my son), and often surges later in the season. Which is exactly where we are right now. Both types are included in the annual flu vaccine.

What followed felt like a punishment. Hell week. A cruel reminder of just how precious health is, and how sickness comes for us all.

We used a combo COVID/flu test, and the line for flu B lit up like a Christmas tree. Confirmation.

And then, two days later, while I was recording an episode of the podcast, it suddenly felt like my head was in a vice. I knew. My time had come. (That was a rough re-watch for me. My pale skin, the dark circles under my eyes — I looked like a dying Victorian boy. But I got through it!)

The chronic oversharer that I am, I posted to my Instagram stories. I also shared a brief black-and-white video of my kitchen counter covered with bottles of Tylenol, ibuprofen, tissues, Gatorade, Lysol wipes, disinfectant spray, set to “Help!” by The Beatles. The messages rolled in. Most of them read something like: Oh my goodness, my family just got over flu B — it was absolutely brutal. Hang in there, mama.

Sweet. Kind. Appreciated.

But not all of them.

Others read as: "Aren’t you and your kids vaccinated?" How’s that working out for you??? More proof that vaccines do nothing.

And still others, in response to my counter video: Where are the masks?! You call yourself a public health advocate?!

Flash forward to today. The flu has morphed into a sinus infection that has turned me into a shell of a human. It hurts to blink. My head feels like it might detach from my body at any moment and float off into the sky. Honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t be too mad about that. But I can keep my head upright long enough to share a few lessons from this week. Let’s discuss…

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Lesson 1: Prepare for an earful if I ever hear you utter the phrase “just the flu.”

“Just the flu” meant watching my son so miserable and so uncomfortable that he looked up at me and asked why this was happening to him, and whether I could make it stop.

He had no interest in screens because his eyes burned and his head hurt too badly. So I lay there next to him, stroking his back, blowing on the back of his neck, doing anything I could think of to bring him some relief — just as my mother did for me, and her mother did for her. I became a medication drill sergeant: setting timers, keeping a running log of when he got Tylenol and ibuprofen so I could rotate them and keep him as comfortable as possible. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy. The vomiting wiped out his appetite for a full week — tiny sips of Gatorade, ice chips. I lost count of the cups of tea and ginger ale, the cold compresses on his boiling neck and back. He sustained temperatures of 103–104 for four or five days straight. He woke up drenched in puddles of sweat. Sheet changes, cold showers… the cycle continued for days.

And then it was my turn.

The fever hit fast— disturbingly high, the kind that made my whole body vibrate. I could actually hear my pulse. I dragged myself to the bathroom floor just to feel some relief from the cold tile. The sneezing was relentless. The nausea. The fun GI stuff, I will spare you the details of. The sore throat that somehow managed to hurt on both the inside and the outside at the same time. The coughing so hard I swore I broke a rib. Every symptom my son had, I had— which made it difficult to care for myself (and rest) while also trying to take care of him. #momlife

I could hear my father’s voice the whole time. Anytime I was sick growing up — any discomfort at all — he’d say, “I wish I could take your sickness from you and take it myself, Jessy.” He said it when I was small, and he kept saying it until the day he died — even when he had cancer and COPD and knew that even a common cold could kill him. Lying there next to my son, stroking his back at 3am, I understood that sentiment in my bones. Unfortunately, I took his illness, but he still kept his.

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As for the masking comments, my son had a raging fever and was so hot and miserable that there was simply no way I was going to ask him to wear a mask. As for me, yes, I could have masked around him those first couple of days. But my son is a human barnacle, and I am his person. I knew we’d be in extremely close quarters until he felt better, and I also knew we’d shared a drink the night before he showed any symptoms. The odds were not in my favor.

But that doesn’t mean I threw mitigation out the window. My son and I quarantined together in one bedroom and designated a specific bathroom just for the two of us. My husband moved to a separate room. My daughter—who is deeply attached to her brother and was not thrilled about any of this—stayed in her room, though she did occasionally appear in the doorway just to check that he still existed. When I left the room, I masked around my daughter and my husband, because I was almost certainly incubating by then. And clearly I was right.

We didn’t leave the house (still haven’t, actually). Of course, my son stayed home from school the full week. Harm reduction is still reduction.

My daughter did eventually get it. And no, I don’t take that as evidence that I failed as a mother or as a public health advocate. It means that infectious diseases are, by definition, infectious. Containing illness within a household, especially with young children, is hard. Maybe my son emerged from quarantine a day too soon. Maybe one of those times my daughter slipped into the doorway, she touched a handle I hadn’t gotten to yet with the Lysol. I don’t know exactly where or how it happened, and I’m not going to spend a single minute beating myself up about it. What I do know is that we contained it to our household. Nobody outside these four walls got sick because of us. And my husband, an ER doctor who walks into infectious disease daily (but always masked around patients!), has remained completely flu-free. I am still a little bit awed by that. Knock on wood.

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On why I bothered testing: I got this question a lot, too. Aside from the fact that I’m, you know, a public health scientist who finds this information genuinely useful, there is a very concrete reason to test, and my situation is a perfect example.

It’s because I tested and knew I was dealing with influenza that I made the decision to take Xofluza, an antiviral specifically targeted at flu.

Let’s talk antivirals for a sec. Most people have heard of Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Fewer have heard of Xofluza (baloxavir). Tamiflu has been around for decades and is widely used. A recent network meta-analysis got some attention for suggesting its benefits may be more modest than previously thought, but flu antiviral experts pushed back, pointing out methodological issues, including WHO cost thresholds designed for lower-income countries that don’t map cleanly onto clinical practice here. The short version: Tamiflu still has a role, particularly for high-risk patients.

Xofluza is a newer single-dose oral antiviral, and the same analysis suggested it may be modestly better than standard care at reducing the risk of hospitalization and shortening symptom duration, with fewer side effects than Tamiflu. It’s also worth knowing that Xofluza is approved for kids ages 5 and up. We didn’t strongly consider it for our son at the time; he isn’t high risk and tends to bounce back well. In hindsight, given how hard he got hit, it’s something we might have weighed more carefully.

So yes — I took Xofluza. I’ll admit I waited too long; it can be taken after a known exposure, before symptoms even start, and I waited until I was already sick. I also paid over $180 out of pocket, and that’s with insurance and a manufacturer's coupon. That number really, really bothers me.

As of 2026, there is no generic version of Xofluza available. It’s still a brand-name-only drug, which is a big part of why the price stays high and why availability can be spotty. Roche did launch direct-to-consumer sales at a discounted cash price of $50 through Alto Pharmacy and Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company, so that option is available (I did not have the bandwidth to do my due diligence at the time. I’m telling you now so you don’t make the same mistake I did). I’m hopeful that a generic isn’t too far off, because this is a drug that more people should be able to access without having to choose between treating the flu and paying their bills.

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Lesson 2: No, I don’t think the vaccine failed me.

My very first thought when reflecting on this week from hell — genuinely, reflexively — was: I truly cannot imagine how sick I’d be if I hadn’t gotten the flu shot.

And yet, sitting in my Instagram DMs was a chorus of people who looked at the exact same situation and arrived at the exact opposite conclusion. See? Proof the vaccine doesn’t work.

Same information. Completely different instinct.

Neither of us can actually prove our case because we only get one version of this story. We don’t know what would have happened to me in a world where I skipped the vaccine. Would I have ended up in the hospital? Would it have lasted longer? Would it somehow have been even worse? I genuinely don’t know. And neither does anyone else.

This is the reason we conduct research studies.

Anecdotes are meaningful. My experience this week was real, and it matters to me deeply as my lived experience. But a single story — mine, yours, anyone’s — is a data point. Not evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data, no matter how compelling the anecdote.

So here’s a little detour… bear with me.

If I had a time machine, I could go back, skip the flu shot, and observe what happened. Then I could compare the two versions of my week and actually answer the question. But time machines don’t exist. So instead, we run studies — and we build in something called a counterfactual: a control group designed to represent exactly that time-machine scenario. What would have happened to people like me under the same conditions without the intervention? That comparison is where the real signal lives.

And when you look at the body of evidence on flu vaccines—not my Instagram story, not your neighbor’s bad experience, not one rough flu season—the picture is clear. Flu vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death. That has been demonstrated across decades of research and millions of people.

Now, is this year’s vaccine perfect? No. One of the circulating strains, the H3N2 subclade K, drifted after the vaccine had already been formulated, and the mismatch is real. Headlines ran with that. But even with significant mismatch, interim effectiveness estimates against subclade K still came in at around 37–40% for adults — squarely in the low-to-mid range of what we typically see in any given flu season. Estimates for younger age groups have been more encouraging. And notably, researchers flagged that the vaccine appeared to be performing better than the virological data alone would have predicted — likely because pre-existing immunity from prior exposures and vaccinations was doing some of the heavy lifting. The system is also already correcting course: FDA advisers just recommended that subclade K be included in next fall’s vaccine formulation. Huzzah!

Vaccines that are imperfect are not the same as vaccines that don’t work.

And to the people in my comments who love to point out that they “never got the flu shot and never got the flu” — lucky you! I can tell you with 100% confidence that not getting the shot did not prevent you from getting the flu. Go buy a lottery ticket.

My week was brutal, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m getting my flu shot next season. And so will my kids. Because the overwhelming evidence shows that my experience would have been far worse without it.

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Lesson 3: We are not all the same body — and we cannot always predict how illness will affect us.

There are variables at play that simply cannot be pinpointed.

Take my husband and me. Same house. Same exposure. I get deathly ill — high fevers, praying for death, end of days, the whole production. The worst he usually gets is a sniffle. Is it genetics? The fact that he’s an ER doctor and his immune system has been sparring daily for years? The food we ate as kids? The fact that I am a workaholic for whom leaving the computer to check the mail counts as fresh air? That I don’t move my body as much as I know I should? All of these things likely play some role. None of them can be fully untangled from the others.

And then I look at my kids. Same parents. Same household. Same school. Same everything — and yet my son was flattened while my daughter had a comparatively mild course.

The truth is that we cannot always predict how something will affect us. And we cannot take someone else’s experience — good or bad — as a reliable preview of our own. What we can do is play the odds. Stack the deck in our favor however we’re able. The eating of nutrient-rich foods. The moving of our bodies. The filling of our cups with friendships and things that bring us joy. The getting vaccinated. The wearing of masks. The opening of windows. The handwashing. The testing. The staying home while sick. The resting. The sleeping.

None of it is a guarantee, but all of it matters.

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Alright, friends, my bed is calling me. I have a date with a facial steamer and whatever is currently taking up residence in my sinuses.

But before I go, a final thought.

Watching my kids slowly come back to themselves this week — the appetites creeping back, the smiles, the laughter, the beautiful chaos — has been the greatest gift. There is no truer truism than ‘health is wealth’. You don’t really feel the weight of that until you’re in the thick of losing it, even temporarily. Until you’re on the bathroom floor at 2am, or watching your child ask you to make the pain stop, and you are utterly humbled by how fragile it all is.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. And for the love of all that is holy — don’t skip your annual flu shot.

Feel better soon, from one shell of a human to whoever else is currently in the trenches with me.

Stay Curious,

Unbiased Science