Swine Flu....

I honestly cannot believe that I have swine flu!!! Yes, you read that correctly! I feared it from the beginning and I have it....

It began on Saturday. I was feeling a little off colour when I woke up, having no appetite and a bit of a headache, although I didn't really think anything of it at first - I just carried on with the chores and then my friend Steph came round after lunch for a gossip. While she was here I began to feel a little queasy and hot, but brushed it off as nothing (I couldn't drink my hot chocolate either which in hindsight was a VERY bad sign!).

When she had gone home I thought that I must be feeling ill because I hadn't eaten all day, so I made myself some pasta - BIG MISTAKE! I won't go into the gory details but I had to rush straight to the loo as soon as I ate it... so there I sat, cursing a Saturday evening being ruined, then felt a bit better.

So I went into the sitting room and vegged out in front of the tv thinking it would pass (my eternal optimism never fails me!) but my back and shoulders started REALLY aching and I suddenly began to shiver and sweat. And I mean sweat. I had never experienced anything like it in my life.

I was supposed to be going to my Mum's the following day (yesterday) to look after my little sister while my mum and step dad attended a trade fair in Yorkshire. I wanted to feel better so that Olivia wouldn't end up being by herself... I told myself that an early night would do the trick and toodled off to bed.

I vaguely remember briefly waking up at dawn to find my nightclothes and bedclothes stuck to me (!). As soon as I woke up in the morning I KNEW that I wouldn't be able to go anywhere. I had to head to the loo very quickly where I was ill again, but that didn't trouble me half as much as the state of my body. EVERY muscle ached. Even my elbows and fingers hurt. If it wasn't so painful I'd have laughed at myself, because I was hanging onto bedroom furniture and doorways as if I was 90!!! I honestly don't know how I made it to the loo!! I had pain across my back when breathing, but it was very intermittent and I couldn't work out if it was muscular or something more sinister.

I still didn't think of swine flu though (!), because I had heard that it started with a fever and cough. I had no cough/cold symptoms at all but felt so ill and ached sooo much that I rang NHS Direct (an NHS helpline staffed by trained nurses and doctors).

I was on hold for 23 minutes listening to swine flu information messages and then I was cut off. Yes, I was ringing to speak to someone because I was feeling very ill and got cut off!!!! At this point I was finding it difficult to even hold the phone to my ear but pressed redial... 16 minutes later I spoke to a very nice lady who told me that she was 99% sure that it was swine flu, saying that they had seen a surge in people calling with the same symptoms from my postcode area. I wondered how it could be swine flu considering I had no head cold symptoms, and she said that people were either reporting fever with sore throats and coughs, or the runs and nausea. Evidently I was in the latter category. She said that a doctor would call me back but warned that it could take up to 40 minutes because they were overloaded with swine flu calls.

Ten minutes a male nurse called Graham phoned me (lovely Scottish accent!). He agreed that I had swine flu and he was great. He spent a lot of time reassuring me that swine flu was very mild in most people, and even though cerebral palsy can be classed as an underlying health condition, he said in my case I can almost disregard it, because I don't take medication and neither do I have any of the associated health problems. Apparently back pain when breathing was quite common with swine flu, and as I didn't have a cough or pains in my chest he said I should be fine, but to call back immediately if I started wheezing etc. He told me to avoid watching / reading any media coverage because it's all scaremongering, and he said that they (the staff) were annoyed that they were focusing so much on the sad deaths and disregarding the thousands of people who have fully recovered. He also said that the government had changed how they were dealing with swine flu now that so many have it, so were only giving Tamiflu to the high risk groups such as pregnant women, asthmatics, diabetics and those with underlying health conditions (not me!). He advised plenty of fluids (ice lollies if I couldn't face lots of water), food such as soup, paracetamol NOT ibuprofen as I had an upset stomach, and rest. He said that I should contact my GP in the morning to let him know I'm a suspected case.

The rest of yesterday passed in a blur. I carried my duvet and pillow into the sitting room and made a bed on the settee (like when I was little!) so I could watch tv, and went to get a glass of water. Even that totally exhausted me. I remembered that I hadn't unloaded the washing machine the previous night because I was ill, but I couldn't even do that.

I made it back to my improvised bed and rang Mum, who had just arrived in Yorkshire. She immediately knew I wasn't right and couldn't believe it when I told her that it was suspected swine flu. Then I phoned my cousin Claire who lives nearby, to ask her to bring me some paracetamol (typical, I had boxes of unused ibuprofen but no paracetamol left!). Then I rang my neighbour Debbie to let her know, just in case she was going to pop round.

I must have slept after this, because it was around 9:30am when I rang NHS Direct and suddenly the EastEnders omnibus was on. I felt a little better and rang my little sister to apologise that I wasn't there when she got up. She said that Mum and Daddy had told her that I probably had swine flu and asked if it was true. When I said yes she was quite upset, because she had heard that everyone was dying from it, but I managed to convince her that I was ok, and she seemed to accept that and we chatted about normal things. I microwaved myself some soup and it went straight through me :( so just kept topping myself up with water.

The remainder of yesterday was spent sleeping, sweating and aching! I frightened myself when nightfall approached, because I felt so very ill, and was scared that something would happen to me if I went to bed (seems silly now!). I woke on the settee at 3am. The room light was on and the curtains still open. All I could think was "OMG what if someone saw me sleeping?!" Staggered to bed and slept until 8am this morning when I was woken by my work colleague Amanda ringing to see if I was ok.

I was relieved to realise that my fever had gone down and the diarrhoea had subsided - both making me feel instantly much better.

I rang my doctor's surgery and the receptionist said that my GP would ring in the next hour as part of his swine flu telephone clinic. Half an hour later he rang, and was so kind (my doctor is great anyway!), he spent ages talking me through everything. He said that they were no longer testing for swine flu but from my symptoms he would say that I definitely have it and was typing me a Tamiflu prescription for collection. The drug is still being issued to every symptomatic person in my area. I was warned that it may make me vomit or very nauseous, but this should calm down after the first dose and if affected I MUST persevere with it. He asked me to call him back on Wednesday so he can monitor how I am doing, but I could call back in the meantime if I have any concerns.

The bad news is that I am not allowed to go to Peter's memorial service tomorrow :(. I was hoping that I may be able to as I am not coughing or sneezing, but no, this is out of the question. I am in quarantine (or "house arrest" as my Dr jokingly called it) for the next 5 days. Obviously I know that it would be selfish to go and put everyone at risk, but a tiny part of me hoped that I'm not that infectious. And I really want to say goodbye...

So no memorial. DEVASTATED.

And to top it all off, my body still aches and the Tamiflu is making me feel as sick as a dog. I mean seriously nauseous. I'm bored of bread so think I'll try rice pudding and hope that helps (haven't the energy or inclination to cook anything).

Hopefully I'll stop moping about soon too! It's just that it's so horrible having this when you live alone. Feeling ill and lonely is not good!

Take care and stay healthy my dears! Am off to microwave some rice pudding, give myself a stern talking to and try and paint that smile back on!

xx