Like many people, I am sick of hearing the words H1N1, Swine Flu, Pigdemic, Hamthrax and so forth.
Is it really all its cracked up to be? If we all start kissing pigs will the world come to an end? It’s just the flu right?
My mom was sick for weeks in the summer and swore she had swine flu. I didn’t believe her. Having studied communications in university I am sceptical of information based on the six o’clock news.
To me, it felt like the whole thing was just a big fad that would be out of style by the time fall fashions arrived in shops.
Then, I woke up one morning in the darkness that is 7AM in October, to find an elephant sitting on my chest. No, not really, but it sure felt like it. No other symptoms, other than feeling like someone had either sat on our shrunk my lungs while I was sleeping.
I dragged myself into work and puttered around until mid-afternoon, before going home and climbing into bed. The next two and a half days were filled with coughing and a raging fever that resulted in me either being uncomfortably cold under five blankets, despite burning skin, or sweating out every last drop of moisture in my body. It was awesome.
As a result of the fever, my body hurt, so much so that I would rather stay in bed than drag myself 20 feet to the couch to watch good daytime television.
Lucky for me Thanksgiving was in the middle of this, so I didn’t have to worry too much about the work I was missing. I did finally drag myself into the doctor, only to have him nod and tell me it was most likely H1N1, but I was looking and sounding pretty good and could go back to work the next day. Helpful, I know. I kind of thought they might be handing out t-shirts saying “I survived swine flu” with an image of a gal locking lips with a cute little piglet, but alas, no shirt. So, I went home and enjoyed my last day off work.
But more seriously, there seems to be a fair bit of public confusion as to what to do about this swine flu – shots or no shots, in one arm or two, old people or young people?
There was a great piece in the Globe and Mail this past week by Andre Picard, as he attempts to clear up the ‘conflusion’: Reader questions on H1N1 answered.
Other great sources of information include:
A Vancouver Notebook 