I used to think I understood the flu.
I grew up in the era of “push through,” where you got sick, felt awful for a few days, and then gradually turned a corner. You knew when you were on the mend. You went back to work. Life resumed.
This season has unsettled that assumption. Not because of headlines or statistics—but because I found myself close enough to watch this flu move through my own family and a community I care about.
What stood out to me most wasn’t just how sick people felt—it was how different this illness was. With the flus I remember, there was usually a peak. You felt terrible, but you could sense when you were turning a corner. This one doesn’t offer that reassurance. It moves quickly past “awful” and into something more unsettling—the kind of sick where you lie there listening to your own breathing wondering whether a hospital might be next.
Once it settles in, it doesn’t pass through lightly. It flattens people for a full week or more. In a surprisingly short span of time, I’ve watched multiple people taken to the hospital. Some by ambulance. And they stay there for days.
My husband and I were surprised that people we were active with ended up in the hospital. We had been really good at using the Chinese Medicinal supplements I had prescribed, and we passed through this unscathed. But, as with everything, you can start to believe you are immune because you’ve been exposed and haven’t gotten sick.
Four of my neighbors and friends ended up in the hospital. New Year’s Eve, my husband was sitting next to one of the individuals who ended up in the hospital. The guy didn’t look sick. But he was already in super spreader mode. It took a day, and my husband started showing “allergies.”
The “allergies” kept increasing, and I told my husband he should take his formula. Guess if he took his formula? If you guess that he didn’t, you would be right. The next day, he was really sick and ended up in bed for five days.
I helped him with using Chinese Medical herbs aggressively for the first two days. What’s different now compared to pre-COVID flus is timing. Early support matters more than it used to. Once symptoms fully take hold, recovery becomes slower and more demanding, no matter the system of care.
That is what happened to my husband. The flu struck, and he woke up really sick. It was like treating pneumonia, and the first two days were so severe that he was concerned he was going to have to go to the hospital. For individuals already under strain, eliminating all that virus can be too much at once. The question isn’t whether to help, but how to help without overwhelming the system.
Day 3, I felt the elimination was too much, so I added decongestants to the Chinese herbs, like Nyquil and that plop-plop fizzy one, to slow it down. And I guess that was a key learning for me. There are so many ways to support our health, and stay flexible. Make educated decisions from what you know.
My husband hadn’t eaten in 3 days because food sounded awful. I used Chinese dietary therapy to create a revitalizing meal that his body would crave and use. I made hot and sour soup from scratch. Real broth. Real ingredients. This didn’t feel like a moment for shortcuts like buying the processed blend from a restaurant.
The soup supported everything his body was already trying to do; breathe more easily, regain energy, and recover strength. It wasn’t a cure; it was nourishment at a moment when his system needed it most. I’ll put a link to the hot-and-sour soup recipe I used if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
He was sure he wouldn’t be able to eat.
He ate all of it.
I watched his body settle. His stomach relaxed. His strength began to return. It felt like a turning point, not because the illness was over, but because his system finally had enough support to keep going. It was the same quiet shift I’ve seen before, when nourishment finally meets exhaustion.
He spent the next day in bed, and on day five, we went for a short walk outdoors. For some reason, the outdoors is really healing with this flu. It is like finding wind for your sails.
For my husband, this infection had a serious impact. He believes that the early herbal support played a significant role in keeping his illness from escalating further. Watching others around us struggle much longer made that difference hard to ignore.
As this unfolded at home, the larger pattern in the community became clearer. This flu doesn’t move quickly. It lingers. People feel mostly fine for days, sometimes a week, before anything dramatic happens. During that time, it quietly spreads, building momentum until one day the body tips from “a little off” into seriously sick.
In the short time I’ve been in this community, I’ve watched multiple people hospitalized for breathing issues, heart strain, dehydration from vomiting, and diarrhea. In seven years of being around this same community, illness was rarely visible to me at all.
No one has died.
But recovery has been slow. Grueling. And there’s a familiar echo of COVID. People think they’re better, return to life, and then find themselves struggling again. It’s as if the body never quite caught up.
I haven’t gotten sick. Not because I’m untouched—but because I’m paying close attention. The moment I feel a scratch in my throat, a headache, or a hint of digestive cramping, I respond. I don’t wait. I support early with my formulas. I rest. I eat simply. I go outside.
Watching this move through my family and this community has been a quiet reminder: the body speaks long before it collapses. And when we learn to listen early, really listen, we give ourselves a different experience of illness altogether.
For a long time, strength meant pushing through. This season has reminded me that strength can also look like discernment.
Listening early, before the body has to escalate, has become a form of self-respect for me.
If you’re at a point where you want to understand what your body is asking for, rather than override it, a simple conversation can sometimes be enough to bring perspective.