The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: At least you got your health

This week’s The Walking Dead episode showed us one thing: If you don’t have your health in a zombie apocalypse…you don’t really have much at all.

In this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, there was kind of a subtle little message going on throughout the episode: Stay healthy. It was subtle, but, in their own way…they were hammering it home.

The very first thing we saw on Sunday’s episode, in fact, was Kelly’s hearing going haywire on her, and nearly getting her bitten!

To be fair, where other shows might have simply glossed over the issue, The Walking Dead has done a fairly decent job of addressing the fact that, with all the guns going off so often, peoples’ eardrums are likely to get blown to Hell, eventually.

However, Kelly’s incident is the first time, in my recollection at the very least, where the show has addressed just how dangerous hearing loss in a zombie apocalypse can truly be.

I think many of us take our hearing for granted; With us focusing so much on what we see, we sometimes overlook just how important our hearing really is.

But, as we saw with Kelly, where we can’t see everything going on around us a one time, we need our ears to help us cover our blind spots and tell us when zombies are coming up behind us.

Some hearing loss can’t be avoided, sometimes it’s due to age or it’s simply genetic, but, the hearing loss suffered by external damage to the ears can be avoided, and, if Kelly’s close call showed us anything, it’s that such damage should be avoided as best as possible.

If you can find earplugs at pharmacies or sporting goods stores, you’d be smart to stock up on them and have them handy whenever using firearms or anything else that can cause excessively loud noises. Once you lose your hearing, especially in a zombie apocalypse, it’s tough to get it back.

And, that’s part of a larger problem that we overlook: Just because we’re in a zombie apocalypse, doesn’t mean that all the other diseases that plague us will just go away.

Case in point: The revelation that Ezekiel has thyroid cancer.

It’s tragic to see a beloved character contract such a horrible disease, made worse by the fact that…there isn’t anything anyone can do for him.

You see, in a zombie apocalypse, with civilization collapsing, and taking much of our technology with it, it severely hampers our ability to fight certain diseases. Certain machines that medicine relies on to try to defeat things like cancer will likely become almost unusable after the apocalypse either because we can’t get a means to power them, or because we don’t have the means of getting them to a source of power they could use.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that there are some things that, while we may be able to deal with them right now, in a zombie apocalypse…they may well be a death sentence.

My advice: In a zombie apocalypse, where medical science is severely limited, try to keep yourself as healthy as you possibly can, so that you aren’t forced to rely on technology that simply may not be there to be relied upon. It’s one of those “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” kind of things.

Of course, as we saw with Ezekiel, there may be some diseases that, no matter how healthy you are, will take you down just the same. That’s just how some diseases are.

And, while some of those diseases, like cancer, you may not be able to avoid, some of those extremely deadly diseases, you can avoid, simply by being smart.

Look at Gamma. While angrily stabbing the corpse of a dead Whisperer, she foolishly sliced up the palm of her hand, giving herself a pretty nice gash. Considering she got it while stabbing a walker, she’s lucky she didn’t get infected in the process; Hell, taking the gauze Aaron gave her might have made the difference between getting back to help Alpha hatch another plan, or becoming just another “guardian”.

All it can take, sometimes, is something small, like a cut, in the wrong place and at the wrong time, to cause you to catch something that you can’t fight, and get you killed, it’s why being smart about what you do (And what you do should you get injured or sick) is so important.

Last, but, certainly not least, in this whole “health” message I took from this week’s Walking Dead, is the importance of mental health.

What am I talking about? Well, let’s just say, if you’re in a group, you need to be aware of the signs of someone who’s a little unhinged.

For example: If you have someone in your group who is obsessed with killers or killing…yeeeeaah, you got bit of a problem on your hands (Side Note: Don’t get too psyched about people who kill people…that’s messed up).

This is a pretty good sign that, whoever this is, they’re disturbed and, potentially, a danger to your group. Don’t let them out of your sight, don’t let them near weapons, and don’t let them near people who can’t defend themselves, because, if they’re that obsessed with killers/killing, sooner or later, they’re probably going to try to emulate that which they’re so fascinated by.

It’s important to stay healthy in a zombie apocalypse, internally, externally, mentally, basically, in any aspect you can think of. Whether it’s because you can’t rely on medical technology to save you from disease, or, because you don’t want to catch any of the other nasty diseases that don’t go away when the apocalypse starts, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that, the healthier you make yourself, the more likely you are to survive.

This is why you follow…The Rules.

And that’s our Survival Rule Of The Week! Hopefully, you’ve gained a little insight into all the various things you’ll need to look out for and do. If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!