I woke up with a sore throat on Thursday October 8th… I figured it was just a little cold starting… no big deal… I figured I would be able to fight it off… Friday and Saturday passed and I still had the sore throat… but not really any other symptoms… Sunday night it was like I got hit by the swine flu bus… the congestion set in and the coughing was horrendous… Did I think I might have Swine Flu?  Of course not… it seemed so impossible that I would have the flu… I hadn’t had the flu in years… I got my seasonal flu vaccine weeks ago… I have a huge bottle of hand sanitizer on my desk… I wash my hands so much my knuckles are raw…. I didn’t have Swine Flu….

Monday I came to work and started to feel tired and the congestion got worse and the coughing got worse… I went home before the news that night… I rested… and thought surely I would feel better on Tuesday morning… I didn’t… I felt worse… my mom suggested I call a doctor… I haven’t been to the doctor in years… but at that point I thought it sounded like a good idea…

When I got to the doctor’s office - I sat as quietly as possible… coughing… eating my cough drops as if they were candy… looking around the waiting room at the other people who surely wished I would exit the room as soon as possible… I was coughing into my sleeve.. covering my mouth… but still at that point I almost wished I had a mask… I didn’t want people to think I was being irresponsible with my germs…

I rested my head on the wall as I waited… there was only one doctor in the office to see all of the patients that afternoon… finally the nurse came to the door… she called my name… once I got settled in the exam room she said it might be a while… I thought about laying down on that white paper covered exam table but didn’t think I would be able to actually get any rest with all of the crinkle noises it would make…

So… the doctor finally comes in… I describe my symptoms.. started as a sore throat… he says me too… then I told him about the congestion… he says me too… then I told him about the awful coughing.. he says me too!! I said… “Well, you seem to be doing a whole lot better than I am right now.”

He said.. because I have medicine…. then he went on to say in a very casual way… you have the flu… I said I got my seasonal flu vaccine weeks ago… he said well it’s probably swine flu… he acted like it was no big deal and I guess for many of us it isn’t that big of a deal… but the next few days changed my mind about that…

He wrote me a prescription for cough medicine - it was too late for Tamiflu - that only helps if it is given within 48 hours of your symptoms… I went to the pharmacy and stocked up on tissues and cough drops while I waited for my cough medicine to be ready… got the medicine and after leaving my house about 3 hours earlier I was on my way back home to do more of the same… try to rest and drink plenty of fluids…

The next two to three nights all ran together… I coughed a lot… so much that I even tried sleeping sitting up in bed… I was convinced that the stuffing rolling around in my head was tickling my throat because I was laying down… my theory was incorrect… I coughed as much sitting up as I did laying down… morning after morning I would think I might feel better when I woke up the next day… and morning after morning I called my boss to say I was sick and could barely get out of bed let alone think about trying to anchor a news cast…. when I called Thursday she suggested that I take the rest of the week and weekend to try to get better and hopefully I would be back to normal on Monday…

Well, I am not exactly back to normal but I am much better than I was a few days ago… when they say H1N1 is “mild” I guess they mean compared to death… because I expected it to be like a common cold…. last week was not like any common cold I have ever had… perhaps some of our expectations come from the perception we have of the massive amounts of information we are bombarded with everyday about this new flu that so many of us are dealing with in one way or another…

So here I am back at my desk… again using my hand sanitizer… trying to stay as far away from my co-workers as possible even though technically I don’t think I am still contagious… still washing my hands… and just hoping that the vaccine I got for the seasonal flu works to its fullest potential because I don’t have enough sick days or patience left to go through this again… at one point I wondered if I was ever going to get better.

So… like you…. I continue to read the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and monitor the latest reports from the Virginia Department of Health just looking for all the details I can get about this new illness that in some ways has so many of us perplexed but in others is so similar to the flu we have been dealing with for years.

Link to more about local H1N1 vaccine flu locations from the Virginia Department of Health.

Link to more information about masks for people who have H1N1 from the Centers for Disease Control - look under How Flu Spreads.

Link to more about Flu.