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Just An Observation: Tis the season — for sickness

It’s simply a rite of passage in any family and there is no foresaking it.
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It’s simply a rite of passage in any family and there is no foresaking it.

What am I speaking of? I’m talking about how when one person gets sick, inevitably (okay, 97 per cent of the time) the entire household winds up with the same illness.

Now, this is more likely to occur when there is at least one child in the home that is 10 or younger and happens more often when school starts, when school is back after a lengthy break (ie: spring break, end of December, etc.) as well as when the seasons begin to change.

And no matter the attempts at staying away, it will generally catch up and hit you as hard.

You can keep up with taking your vitamins, eat and drink as healthy as you possibly can, wash your hands consistently, refuse to shake hands or accept hugs, stay away from people that look like they “might” have some illness or wear protective masks everywhere.

However, whatever is going around will find a way to reach out and touch you, simply because kids bring home more than just homework and stinky lunch bags.

Why? Well, while you may have taught your child those same personal skills to help prevent sickness, they often aren’t as good at keeping up with that routine without being reminded.

On top of that, otherwise healthy people can be struck down with a viral or bacterial infection just by the slightest contact with an infected individual or item.

That said, doing all of those things mentioned previously will severely limit the affects of any infection while also making the body more resistant. But will it keep a person from catching something? Nope, though the time it takes to get rid of an illness will likely be lessened considerably.

Now, when I do get a flu or cold, I usually have to fight it fast and hard — herbal teas, lots of fluids including orange juice, soups, rest when possible, salt water gargle for any sore throat and medication to lower the symptoms so I can either work or get some sleep at night.

It doesn’t always work the best, but usually in four or five days I’m back to feeling the way I always do.

So, just accept that sometimes illness strikes and simply deal with it the best way possible.

In the meantime, I’ll think of those sick whilst I sip on some peppermint tea.

Backing up

I’m going to take a leap back and briefly revisit the subject, from a previous column, of the province wanting smaller municipalities and counties to pay their “fair” share of RCMP expenses.

A release sent out recently by the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General laid the blame for the backlash from municipalities and the poor publicity on the official opposition.

Minister Doug Schweitzer went so far as to lay a charge against the previous government for sitting on their hands for four years despite rising rural crime rates and “their failure to adequately fund law enforcement and criminal justice resulted in a revolving-door justice system.”

To be fair, funding levels for the RCMP in the province rose slightly in fiscal year 2017-18 with a focus on rural crime, which directly corresponded to a drop in crime statistics for a variety of rural areas in Alberta in 2018.

The minister also denoted that any new funds collected would be reinvested into frontline services, “And unlike the NDP’s carbon tax, this is not a cash grab.”

However, it should be noted that in the Ministry of Municipal Affair’s online presentation — conducted in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General — the model presented was described as “cost recovery” and that “this model isn’t really service delivery focused.”

To a lay person, this is either a government that is talking out of both sides of its mouth or one where the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing.

Unless of course, thou doth protest too much because the public and municipalities are right in calling it a download of more provincial costs for the sake of balancing the budget.

But that is…just an observation.