Swine Flu Symptoms

So we’ve all been wondering what it would be like to actually have H1N1, and what the swine flu symptoms are that should send us to the hospital? Well, after having it since the end of October 2009, I can now give some first-hand experience of this.

It started with nausea, which grew worse, but I never did start vomiting. I developed a high fever, some of the worst chills I’ve ever experienced, a rotten headache that lingered forever, and then lost my voice. The fatigue was really something else. All I wanted to do was sleep.  The coughing I had, though not incessant thankfully, resulted in burning in my chest following each coughing spasm. It was not pleasant. When I went to the doctor’s to be examined so I could get a note off work, she said to come back if breathing becomes difficult. Respiratory issues were not to be left untreated.

So off for a week initially. By day four I thought I was getting better, but then started developing some breathing abnormalities that started on a Friday. By Sunday, I knew I would not be able to get through a day of work. Back to another doctor, who this time examined me at the hospital, stuck a mask with medicine over my face and hooked it up to an apparatus, which I was instructed to inhale until the medicine was finished. Everyone at the hospital had a mask on as soon as they said they had a cough, even a slight one. I was prescribed a puffer although I had never had asthma before. And another week off, which we shortened to four days as I had to get to work if possible. Too much to do. I don’t know if my breathing would have worsened if I hadn’t gone in the second time. I do know the fatigue has lingered, so that by mid morning I am very tired and want to go home. Some other co-workers who had H1N1 also had the same fatigue thereafter, so we are a sorry bunch of staff.

I was never worried about getting H1N1 myself, because I wasn’t in a high risk category. I hadn’t smoked for at least five years. My bronchitis episodes had never reoccurred since quitting smoking. I didn’t get the H1N1 vaccine, nor do I plan to now. My daughter who has had croup episodes even as an older adolescent, did get all the H1N1 symptoms, but recovered quickly, within three days. I was very grateful as she tends to be more vulnerable to bronchial issues.

And there you have it. I have not overly encouraged my other two teenaged children to have the vaccine because they are not the vulnerable sector, and I don’t feel I have read enough about the vaccine to want to emphasize it too much with them. I realize this situation has been considered a flu pandemic, but unless I am in the vulnerable sector I don’t want to shoot up with something there has not been enough testing on yet.