The Allens share their story in the hopes they can encourage people to receive a flu vaccine and avoid the scary situation they faced when Madi had the flu.
For days, Madi Allen, then 12, had a fever and a cough that continued to worsen. Mom Shelle Allen thought Madi was worn down from a busy winter and had a bad cold. Madi progressively became sicker and needed help showering and that’s Allen noticed Madi’s lips were blue as she struggled to breathe.
“I never imagined that we would finally get the diagnosis of influenza,” Allen says. “It’s just the flu. We get over it. And I’ve said that numerous times myself. The sad part is, I didn’t know that the flu doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if you are a healthy person or an older person.”In February 2011, Madi fell ill with what seemed like a cold at the time. She experienced a fever and a cough. The family gave her over-the-counter medications, but her cough wouldn't go away.
When they arrived in the emergency room, the family learned what was making Madi so sick. Madi had double pneumonia and flu. Allen felt stunned.Madi normally received a flu vaccine, but that year it “fell off of my radar,” and she didn’t get one. “Her body was just failing. Her organs were failing. At this time, they had already intubated her,” Allen recalls. “They came and told my husband and I that there was nothing more that they could do for her in that hospital … she needed to be on life support because her lungs were shutting down.”Her kidneys were also failing, and her heart had signs that indicated it was in early failure. At the larger hospital, she was placed on ECMO, a heart lung bypass machine, and dialysis.
“For a lot of people, influenza doesn’t usually have the level of mortality risk than something like COVID does. So, by comparison, you’re less likely to die if you get flu than if you get COVID,” she says. “That doesn’t mean that everybody is safe from flu.”“Kids as a rule are at a much higher risk from influenza than middle aged adults or older kids,” Doggett says. “Younger kids are one of the high-risk groups of influenza.
Even still, having once had flu or once had a flu vaccine doesn’t offer people durable protection against flu, which mutates every year. That’s why getting an annual flu shot remains essential.
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