Re: Teenaged boy, from Calgary area, dies of H1N1
Family mourns teen killed by H1N1
By MICHAEL PLATT, QMI Agency
The Calgary Sun
CALGARY - He's the 16-year-old statistic nobody wants to think about -- a healthy teen, killed by a flu that's no longer in vogue as a topic of fear and frenzy.
Before he died Tuesday, after more than a month in a coma, Mike Gorbous' family had hoped to turn a drawn-out, life-threatening illness into something positive, using the boy's pneumonia and suffering as a warning to others.
Get the vaccine, they said -- don't ignore the medicine that can prevent a flu that's still rampant, even if it's no longer front-page news.
Some listened, but it didn't really work, any more than seven weeks of the best treatment available worked for Mike, a teen with a typical taste for rebellion, video games and loud bands.
"The only important thing now is how hard the staff at the Foothills hospital worked to save him," said Mike's grandma, Fay Gorbous.
"They are exceptional people, the doctors and nurses there, and they did everything they possibly could. That's the most important message, if anything."
The same family that was imploring people to get the shot are now laying low, quietly mourning a son who never had an chance to receive the vaccine which might have saved his young life.
"He never had a chance to get the shot," said Fay.
"It's very sad."
When Mike fell ill in late October, there was no vaccine available, though with nothing more serious than a fever, it seemed like a moot point.
But within a week, the Grade 11 student developed chest pains, and in early November he was admitted to Foothills hospital, where he passed away at 4 a.m. Tuesday.
While Mike lay in a coma, the flu went from near-panic to footnote news.
People are still catching it and even dying from it, but denied the plague-like pandemic first forecast, Canadians have stopped caring.
According to Alberta Health Services, there have been 1,255 hospitalized confirmed cases of H1N1 since April.
But the number of new Canadian victims is slowing.
During the week ending Dec. 5, 307 people were hospitalized in Canada, compared to 804 the week before, while 33 people died, compared to 56.
Besides Mike, 18 new fatalities were reported in Canada between Dec. 10 and Dec. 15.
As the number of victims drops, so does public interest, despite warnings a third wave could erupt in the new year.
After allowing seniors, pregnant women and those with illness to get the shot, Alberta and every other province has opened their clinics to all who want a shot, but business is slow.
So few people are now seeking the vaccine, which caused chaotic queues when first available, Health Canada has been forced to go on an advertising blitz across the country.
Yesterday, a full-page ad appeared in this paper, reminding people, "Get the H1N1 flu vaccine."
But the cross-country advertising efforts of Health Canada will pale next to Mike Gorbous' tragic death.
What his parents Kris and Heather tried to do while their son was in a medically induced coma and hooked to a ventilator, will surely be accomplished now that he has lost the fight against the flu.
To see photos of someone so young, a boy peeking out through shaggy hair and the brim of ball cap, is to realize normal, healthy teenagers can still catch H1N1 and die.
If that cold reality doesn't scare people back to the clinics, nothing will.
On Monday, Mike's friend Myles Cronkhite will gather with young mourners in Edworthy Park to release 200 balloons tied together, marked with the names of the people who knew him.
"Mike told me when he died, he wanted me to promise him that I would attach 200 balloons together," wrote Cronkhite, on the Facebook page dedicated to Mike's memory.
The balloons are a moving tribute for a boy taken too young, but Mike's real legacy will be the number of people who seek the vaccine.
Fay says she hopes her grandson's story will convince others to get the vaccine.
"I hope so -- you can only tell people so many times, but they only really understand when it happens to them," said Fay.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/12/17/12185901-sun.html
