Flu Sissies and Stoics: How We Suffer

You feel rotten.

No, you feel worse than rotten. You feel flu-like.

Realtor-to-the-rich Stan Herman of Beverly Hills confesses, “I’m an absolute baby.”

“I just lay in bed like I’m dying,” reveals Gary Wexler, an L.A. advertising agency executive. “And if I have a fever, then I’m completely gone. There’s nothing left of me.”

What they’re describing is their reaction to that sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching-all-over feeling. No wonder Norman Cousins decries Southern Californians as the worst offenders among a nation of sick-time sissies.

“It’s the sissification of the nation,” says Cousins, the Saturday Review editor who laughed himself back to health after a serious illness and now is an adjunct professor at the UCLA School for Medicine. “We don’t realize how robust the human body is, and we tend to cave in emotionally and psychologically unnecessarily.”

And when it comes to Southland residents, well, we’re simply not accustomed to getting sick. How can we, especially when this week’s balmy winter temperatures are hovering in the 80s?

“At least in the East, people know it’s going to snow, and they take flus and colds as a part of life,” Cousins says. “But out here it seems like an aberration.”

So what’s causing all those back-wrenching coughs, runny noses and sandpaper-like throats in the first place?

H3N2. More popularly known as the Sichuan flu.

And, no, it’s not that Chinese meal you had last night near Melrose. It’s a variant of the Hong Kong flu that struck in 1968.

“Actually, we expected to see the Leningrad strain this season,” says Suzanne Gaventa, spokeswoman at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. “But the Sichuan flu is so named because that’s where it was first identified in April 1987--in a province of China.”

In fact, Gaventa notes, the differences between the various flu strains are virtually unnoticeable. All influenzas seem to cause the same symptoms. Specifically, temperatures above 100 degrees, plus a cough or sore throat. “But the only way to confirm it is the flu is to obtain a culture,” she notes.

But how we nurse ourselves back to health shows a lot about our personalities.

First and foremost are the Sissies.

Or, as Dr. Joshua Trabulus, a Century City internist, observes, “this hopeless, helpless frame of mind” that Southern Californians seem to fall into as soon as they feel feverish.

“These people really get into the sick role. They withdraw from work and responsibility, wear pajamas all day and find people who will take care of them,” the physician says. “And even though they’re miserable, for these people flu is the best thing that can happen to them on one level because it’s very recuperative.”

Arthur Hansl, the Pacific Palisades author of the new novel, “A Call From L.A.,” counts on getting at least one bad cold or flu a year. “And I just got over mine a week ago,” he says. The first thing he did was “panic.”

“When I get sick, I’m out of it like a hung jury. I collapse. And I get feeling very sorry for myself,” he notes. “Then I wish somebody were around to take care of me. And sometimes there is. There’s my wife.”

If anyone should know how to cool a high temperature, it’s Los Angeles attorney Hal Kwalwasser, a city fire commissioner. “If I’m running a fever, I give up and get into bed,” he admits.

Actually, crawling under the covers for a few days isn’t as cowardly as it sounds. Cousins, for one, says we shouldn’t feel guilty. “When you have something like the flu and you have a fever, the doctor will tell you to get off your feet and you darn well better follow that advice.”

It only becomes a problem when you want to stay in bed for the rest of your life. “Once your fever is passed and you’re breathing freely again, pampering yourself doesn’t help,” he notes.

Then, there are the so-called Scotchers of the disease world.

As in Chivas Regal and J&B.;

“I make up a batch of my mother’s favorite hot toddy recipe--a large shot of Scotch with sugar and some tea,” Kwalwasser says. “It may not cure me but I don’t feel the pain.”

Barbara Kraft, director of communications for the Museum of Contemporary Art, annually nurses her flu with a citrus brew devised by grandma. She quarters a grapefruit and grates rind into a pan, then boils the mixture for 30 minutes.

So what’s the secret ingredient? “My fantasy is that it’s quinine in the grapefruit rind,” Kraft reveals. “But a doctor might refute that. All I know is that it makes me feel better. And at night I put Scotch in the brew and it really makes a difference.”

In fact, quite a few Californians go on a liquor diet during illness. When Hansl had the flu last week, “I took plenty of cocktails. That’s not a change of routine for me. That’s just part of living.”

Others need to pig out on junk food just to prove they’re really ill. These are the Sinners.

Stan Herman is normally a fanatical follower of the Pritikin diet 51 weeks a year. But during that 52nd week when he’s sick with the flu, “I indulge myself,” he confesses. “I go to bed and eat chocolate chip cookies by the bagful.”

Brett Vinovich, the West Coast representative for Interview magazine, came down with the flu last week and now estimates he must have put on “about 20 pounds.”

First, he nursed himself by watching the “Young and the Restless” on TV. “Then, you know the phrase, ‘Feed a cold and starve a fever?’,” Vinovich asks. “Well, I spent Sunday night through Tuesday in bed surrounded by bags of food.”

The Sneezers have no qualms about going to work and spreading their germs to every living thing within a Kleenex throw from their nose.

The Saunists believe in no-pain, no-gain exercise to sweat out their illness. One problem with this method is that it can bring on a relapse. “I had just gotten over the flu a week ago,” Hansl notes, “when I started missing those days when I couldn’t exercise and went out prematurely and starting running again.

“I ended up getting the flu twice.”

Sex as a Cure-All

Look to the Sirens to think sex is the cure-all for whatever ails them. “I usually work through it because I don’t like to be in bed with the flu,” remarks Count Enrico Carimati di Carimate of Harry Winston Jewelers on Rodeo Drive.

“Unless, the flu is blonde. Then I love it. Or brunette. Or redheaded. I’m not so picky.”

The Superdosers instantly rush off to their doctors for the latest in prescription drugs. Then they spend hours at the local pharmacy poring over the ingredients on packages of Comtrex, CoTylenol and Contact only to wind up buying them all.

Dr. Trabulus admits that he loses his patience with his Superdoser patients. “They really put me in a difficult position. They say they’re too sick to make it into my office and be evaluated, but then they insist on taking an antibiotic.”

The Smart Alecks are probably the most annoying group. They brag about having the foresight to get a flu shot or find miracle drugs while their co-workers are drooping and whooping with disease.

Richard Wald, president of Operation California, an international relief agency supported by the entertainment community, claims he hates taking medicine. But he started taking the antiviral drug, amantadine, when his young daughters came down with the flu this winter. “The nursery school all got it. But not us yet,” Wald boasts.

“Not even a sniffle.”

Gaventa notes that the antiviral drug is recommended only in “outbreak situations. It may prevent influenza or may lessen the severity of its symptoms.” Still, side effects have been reported “to varying degrees,” Gaventa maintains. “It causes dizziness in some people.”

Of course, Southern Californians wouldn’t be Southern Californians without a dissident faction. Call them the Stoics.

These are the people who would rather spend hours on the San Diego Freeway in rush hour than admit that they ever succumbed to a sickness.

Richard Wald claims that with only a small staff and work worldwide, he doesn’t have time to get sick. “I try to work through it unless physically I’m so ill I can’t sit up,” he says. “Even if I’m in bed at home, I’ll still be on the phone eight hours a day.”

Matter of Determination

And actress Angie Dickinson sees even a simple flu as a test of her strength of will. “I don’t get sick,” she states firmly. “I have sympathy for those who do but not a lot of patience. It’s a matter of determination. A good diet and a lot of sleep go a long way.”

Well, sooorrry .

Dr. Edward Stainbrook, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the USC School of Medicine, says that stoics see illness as a threat to their self-image. “People who are very anxious about their vulnerability will deny there is anything wrong with them.”

So far, federal and state health officials can’t gauge how bad this year’s outbreak has been because influenza is not a reportable disease.

Though this year’s flu epidemic may seem Gargantuan, the state Department of Health Services maintains it’s rather middling. “There’s no epidemic at this point,” says Dr. Bob Murray, an epidemiologist with the infectious diseases branch. “All our indicators and listening posts indicate that so far this has been an unusually mild year.”

Just in case you haven’t caught the flu, note this word of warning: you’re not in the clear yet. The official flu season runs from November through March. And Murray warns that there are 100 or so different viral infections that look like, cough like and even sneeze like H3N2 but are really something else altogether.

So go ahead. Get into bed. Call in sick. And rest.

“You’ve got my blessing,” CDC’s Gaventa says. “And see your physician.”