"THE" Flu

It was bound to happen. Doesn't matter how good my immune system is. And, let me tell you, after working in ER, my immune system is advanced. You get a little sampling of every wonderful disease, virus, and bacteria out there. But in the ER that I work at we have had a HUGE surge of patients coming in with "flu like illness". With all the coughing and sneezing going on it was bound to happen. My last set at work I lost count of how many patients we had in the department with "flu like symptoms". So when my days off began, I was elated to be away from all the germs. But 3 days into my days off, WHAMMO! I got a little gift from one of my patients, or many of my patients....I got the swine flu, also known as H1N1. Yup, no joke.

I have now been quarantined in my own home for 5 days now. I officially have 2 more to go, but if symptoms don't disappear...sigh...could be more. The symptoms are slowly disappearing. It began with a high fever (39.5 at its highest), cough, body aches, sore throat, and chills. I am now fever free for 24 hours, and the aches are almost gone. The cough remains, and remains with a vengeance. The cough knocks the wind out of me. I have been taking Tamiflu since onset of the symptoms to help decrease the severity and duration of my flu symptoms, and it appears to be working. It does not however, do anything about my boredom.

Being forced to stay in your own house for 5+ days can become maddening. I have never spent quite so much time on facebook playing farmville, cafeworld, and bejewlled blitz in my life. I have watched more hours of TV in the last 5 days than I care to tally. I am a very social person, enjoy my job, and enjoy being out with friends. So 5 days without any of this, is enough to drive a girl mad! I spend my days on facebook and watching tv, reading, coughing, trying to nap but just really coughing, making tea, pouring glasses of water and juice, blowing my nose, taking my Tamiflu and vitamins, and repeating said cycle over and over and over. I am not even really talking on the phone, because, as you can imagine all this coughing has left my throat raw and sore, and has therefore left me with little voice. I wash my hands so often they are cracked and dry, and smell of my cucumber melon hand sanitizer as well. My poor mother has been cooking for me and doting on me as much as she can, but not wanting to make her sick, I try to avoid her.

Ok, I think I am done my whining post now. I will leave you with a picture of my daily needs. I am slowly getting better, hopefully sooner than later this will all be a distant memory. H1N1, I will beat you!