Can't we all just... stay at home?

It's so simple... so brilliant. Yet no one ever does it. OK... people rarely ever do it.

I'm talkin' 'bout stayin' home when you're sick. Or keeping your kids home when they're sick.

I remember sitting in the pediatrician's office one day, getting one of my children's ears checked for the dreaded acute otitis media, when she announced...

"Yep... we've got an infection."

"Is it contagious?" I asked.

"An ear infection? No," she replied. Then she added, "Of course that cold he has is. So try to limit his exposure to other kids and the elderly. And practice good hygiene... wash hands frequently, make sure he's sneezing into a tissue that he throws away immediately or teach him to sneeze into the bend in his elbow, and separate his toothbrush from his siblings'."

"When the fever's gone, can he get around other kids, then?"

"If his nose is runny and he's still sneezing and coughing, he's still contagious."

"But it says on the nursery sheet to keep him out if he has had a fever within 24 hours."

"I bet it mentions no runny noses and no coughing too. And, oh, by the way, rhinoviruses in children can go on for 2-3 weeks easily."

Gulp.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I had a doozy of a case of OCD a few years back. Left me in my house for weeks at a time for fear of germs. No shoes inside. Scrubbed down with Clorox every item that entered my house. Made my husband take a shower before he could touch the kids. It was ugly. So I can appreciate balance.

But I also know people for whom getting a cold isn't just getting a cold. My mom is older. She has asthma and diabetes. When she gets a cold, sometimes it goes away quickly. But sometimes it stays for a very long time... like the year she ended up with bronchitis that lasted more than 2 months.

And my husband works in the medical device industry where he sees pacemakers and ICD's implanted every day. A cold could be a life-threatening complication for someone with a heart condition or lung ailment or undergoing chemo or a transplant recipient. Add to that infants and the elderly and those with HIV.

Oh a little rhinovirus is generally not a problem at all. But the other opportunistic infections that spring up as a result of an overloaded immune system... they are highly problematic.

I get so frustrated with people who don't stay home when they're sick. I stood in line last winter at the Harris Teeter and the lady bagging my groceries looked horrible. Like she could collapse at any moment. Listening to the chit chat between her and the cashier I found out the lady bagging groceries had the flu. Not flu-like symptoms. The real flu. There she stood, coughing into her hands and then touching all my food as she put it in the bag. I felt bad for her... she didn't want to take off work because she didn't get paid if she didn't work and her family desperately needed the money. So instead, she stood there being Typhoid Mary for the whole city. (I didn't buy those groceries. I know. I felt ugly. But I asked her if she really had the flu and she said, "Yes," and I apologized and told her I just couldn't bring THAT home to my family from the grocery store.)

And of course, corporate America's only-the-strong-survive mentality makes taking a sick day round out the list of Seven Deadly Business Sins. And even in schools, where you'd think they'd be most interested in protecting children, they have exam exemption policies that reward students who come to school sick in order not to accrue more than the allotted number of absences they can have and still not take final exams. Speaking of schools, I can remember one time when I was running a fever of 102 and the Assistant Principal in Charge of Subs asked me when I called in sick if I thought I could come on in because he was having a hard time covering classes for all the sick teachers.

Seriously. Schools (and businesses) are like Infectious Disease Incubation Zones.

So here's my plea... stay home people! If you or your kids are sneezing and coughing and generally spraying mucus all over, just stay home. Get a box of Kleenex. Get a bottle of Purell. Get some chicken soup and some vitamin C and STAY HOME!

And if you HAVE TO be in the public mix, please take a good cold medicine to alleviate the symptoms so you don't shoot the virus all over town in aerosol form. And take along your tissues and your hand sanitizer!

Here's a good article on 12 Ways to Prevent a Cold.