The health report for December 2025: It could have been worse. I felt meh physically at the beginning of the month. On Tuesday, December 2, it snowed enough to close the schools in Albany and much of the surrounding area, a slow-moving storm that eventually dumped 7.2″ at the Albany Airport.
This meant the Albany Public Library was also closed, so our book review was postponed. Wednesday, I felt yucky, and Thursday, worse, so I didn’t attend choir rehearsal. On Friday, I went to the nearest urgent care location. The good news – no flu, no COVID, maybe because I got shots for both in September. Still, I was wiped out enough to forgo attending church on Sunday.
We had rehearsals for our big concert, featuring The Ballad of the Brown King, on Monday night, Thursday night, and Saturday morning, before the program on Sunday, December 14. It went well.
Daughter
Our daughter was scheduled to drive herself home on Tuesday, December 16. But she felt so poorly that my wife ended up driving to western Massachusetts early in the morning to pick her up.
The daughter DID have a diagnosed case of the flu, as did at least three of her housemates. She had influenza A. From here: “The vast majority of cases since the end of September have been flu A, according to the latest CDC data. And of flu A cases, most of those sequenced are H3N2, subclade K.
“The U.S.’s flu season did not start early like it did in [the UK, Japan, and Canada], but subclade K is already showing to be the dominant virus circulating [in the US.] ‘We’re seeing subclade K everywhere we see influenza,’ because subclade K’s mutations allow it to evade existing immunity in the population. It is less recognizable by your body’s immune response, making you more susceptible to infection.”
The daughter had four prescriptions to take. The health clinician at her college suggested that the outbreak was much worse than normal.
Ah, masks. One of the beneficial residual effects of COVID is that we still have half a box of them. My wife and daughter wore them on the ride home. We practiced social distancing; it was good that the daughter had a television in her room. She felt better for a couple of days, but then worse.
It doesn’t matter how old they are; you hate it when your kid get sick, especially during the holidays.
Church
My wife and I got to church on Sunday, the 21st, only to discover that neither of the pastors, Glenn and Miriam, was present. They both had the flu. They called a substitute the previous Thursday, hoping to rest that weekend so they’d be well enough for Christmas Eve, which they were.
But one of the choir members temporarily passed out on Christmas Eve, likely from dehydration. It WAS a heavy music season.