Swine Flu in the House

I haven't posted here in a while. For the most part I think that's because people who are likely to read my blog already know what's happening in my life through other avenues, so it feels kind of redundant. However, I will post a quick update on the last week living with Swine Flu.

Last Sunday Neal came downstairs and said he had a sore throat. I told him to lay down and rest, never thinking anything remotely close to that activity would take place. The next thing I knew though, he was laying in front of the TV almost falling back asleep. Not a good sign. I took his temperature a few minutes later and it was at 101 degrees.

By Monday it was clear that he was sicker than normal and I made a doctor's appointment for him. He stayed home from school. He was miserable and tired and didn't want to get up to drive to the doctor. When we arrived for his appointment, Neal was coughing. The receptionist took one look at him and said he needed to wear a mask. Neal did not want to put that thing on! The only masks he was aware of that looked like the one the receptionist was offering had put him to sleep prior to cochlear implant surgery, and he wouldn't trust that this one wouldn't do the same thing. Finally I got him to wear it.

In the waiting room, almost every other child was wearing a mask. The one child who wasn't, wanted one too. When we got into the doctor's office, the doctor asked a few questions and decided Neal had swine flu. He didn't do the official test because he said it's a painful, intrusive test during which a q-tip is shoved up the kid's nose about 8 inches (couldn't be that far really, or it would be coming out of the top of the kid's head, but I imagine it's pretty long). Neal was not given any medication. He was not considered to be in the high risk group that would get Tamilflu, even though his cochlear implants put him at more risk for meningitis. That surprised me. I was told to give him Tylenol or Motrin for body aches and fever. As an aside, Tylenol did not bring the fever down, but Motrin did.

Neal's fever lasted for 4 days total. It got as high as 103, but I was told that it would be normal if it got all the way up to 105 degrees. The thing that makes swine flu different than other flu bugs in my opinion is how tired it seems to make the child. Neal slept on and off almost all week, and he is NOT a kid who can usually do that. He tried to go back to school on Friday, but only made it a couple of hours. It is now Tuesday, more than a week since he first showed symptoms and he is back to school, but still coughing.

We believe that Neal infected at least 6 other people on the Saturday before he got sick himself because they all became sick on that Monday. If it was from him, then the incubation period does seem to be about 2 to 3 days, as the doctor had told us.

Having lived through the the H1N1 virus now, I would have to say that it is not a cause for mass hysteria. It is however a flu bug to be taken seriously. Normal precautions should accompany it. The number of people I have heard about with the virus in our particular area is very large, but so far I have heard of no deaths.