If I bore you with my story, skip to the bottom for “lessons learned”, because I can find politics and debate in anything.
On Sunday, October 18th, I headed to Decatur to DJ at Atlanta Varsity Showdown. I wasn’t feeling that great, and had a scratchy throat. I sucked it up, picked up a red bull and fulfilled my obligation. At that point, I really just figured I was tired and run down. During the drive home I quickly changed my mind. That night I felt awful, and couldn’t sleep.
I took the next day off work, and rested… hoping that a day of rest would make me feel better. So Tuesday I attempted to carry out a normal day, and for the most part I did, but I certainly wasn’t feeling great. On Wednesday I felt a bit better, and I felt I was on the road to recovery.
How very wrong I was. On Thursday I felt like I had been in a hit and run, and a serious cough had developed. I took Thursday and Friday off of work, figuring I’d use those days, and the weekend to recover.
by Monday it was clear I was not getting better. My symptoms were night sweats, completely achy body, headaches, congestion, intense coughing, and lack of sleep. By this point I had already concluded that I had the flu, and not only that I had H1N1 (Swine Flu). I decided this because about 3 weeks before I had the “Seasonal” Flu shot. I wasn’t scared, as I watch and read the news *a lot*. I knew that H1N1 wasn’t any more dangerous to the average person than any other flu, and I’ve certainly survived many a flu. So I called the doctor, and went in that day. He said I probably have Swine Flu (no, I wasn’t tested). He told me to take Mucinex DM, and gave me an antibiotic, because I had developed Bronchitis (This is standard with me… every time I have any sort of respiratory infection, it almost always develops into bronchitis… this has been the case ever since I chose to go on the skiing trip with Krista and her family when I had a cold/flu when I was in High School. By the way, my wife immediately quarantined me from the rest of the family.
The Musinex did nothing for me (I hear you all gasping, as apparently the entire world thinks this is a miracle OTC drug. Well it sucks for me!), and my cough got much worse. My coughing fits got so bad that my body would rebel and I’d start throwing up. On Thursday I called the doctor back, told him my symptoms were worse. He agreed to see me again. He tested my lungs, gave me an inhaler, changed my antiobiotic to Levequin, and gave me TussionEx for the cough.
That helped. The TussionEx is beautiful, it really slowed down the cough and helped me get some amount of sleep. I eneded up taking the entire next week off of work to recover.
I began working on Tuesday of the next week (this week), but I’ve still been pretty sick. The cough won’t completely go away, and I am very weak as my appetite has not fully returned, but all in all I feel dramatically better. The Quarantine has partially ended, but I still sleep alone as I’m not pleasant to be with at night yet(the night sweats are terrible, and the coughing is still sporadic and annoying).
Lessons Learned
So that’s my story. There are some lessons to be learned from this:
There are a lot of misconceptions about the flu and swine flu.
1) 90% of flu cases being diagnosed right now are H1N1. If you think otherwise, you are fooling yourself. There’s really no reason to test for it because it’s the flu, and you treat it the same way regardless of the strain. For most people there really is no difference between H1N1 and any other strain. It is true that they have noticed that children and pregnant woman are taking it a little harder than other people. The theory is that H1N1 is showing worse symptoms for people who have strong immune symptoms. Perhaps that means I have a strong immune system, or perhaps the Seasonal flu shot I had this year actually made it worse. Or maybe I’m just getting older and things are hitting me harder.
2) I made the mistake of saying “H1N1″ is the seasonal flu this year to a number of people. What I meant was that “the current season of flue is Swine Flu”. Flu season usually really starts in January, and it’s very possible that a new batch of flu illnesses will hit the public. I still stand by the idea that if you have the flu right now, i’d bet money it’s H1N1… it’s “in season”.
3) People are terrified of the Swine Flu. I was in the pharmacy when a woman walked up to the counter asking for the season flu shot. The pharmacist said their store, and most of the others were out. I interrupted and said I had the shot, and it didn’t do me any good. The other woman’s eyes got wide as she asked me “You have the flu?”. I said “yes”. She said “What kind?”. I said “You can only guess”. She bolted from the store, while the pharmacist was happy to continue to talk to me at a few feet length. The bolting lady wasn’t even within 20 feet of me as I was talking to her. I understand not wanting to get sick, but that kind of fear is unjustified, and rather ignorant.
4) There’s a lot of debate about immunization, and frankly it surprises me. Bill Maher (not my favorite person), questioned the entire science behind it. In fact, he said something that I found quite hypocritical. (Links to video at the bottom) On his show, Chris Mathews, a guest, asks Bill “Why are fighting this fight”. Bill responded “Just to say we need a debate about it, just to say that the science is not settled … this is not settled science like global warming”. *Groan* Global warming science is *not* settled, and when anyone says it is, grab your wallet, because you’re being taken for a ride. At any rate, there is something to what he said despite his ignorance and being completely wrong in his reasoning. Immunization for diseases that don’t mutate every year is different than seasonal and commonly mutable diseases. I got the flu shot this year for the first time ever in order to hopefully prevent my baby from getting the flu, and having to get the shot himself. Turns out that was at best possibly a useless gesture, and at worst made my H1N1 case worse.
5) Almost everyone I told that I had swine flu was surprised and concerned in a way I know they would not be if it had been regular flu. It seems that people only listen to the scary details about H1N1 and don’t listen to anything else. I encourage everyone to head over to the CDC website and read what they have to say. (http://www.cdc.gov/H1N1flu/qa.htm).
This is the video that Bill was responding to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB5DLf1Qt78
This is the video I referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPrLCIoxe8Y
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