Recovering from Swine Flu

It all started last Saturday evening. We waved goodbye to the friends who'd come over to dinner, and within about 15 minutes I had a horrible stomach ache, and the (seemingly endless) digestive issues had begun. (Trying to be as delicate as I can about this!).

I didn't sleep at all well that night, what with several visits to the bathroom, and the high fever which made me believe that I was two trays of fairy cakes (aka cupcakes) which were topped with squirty cream. I had to stay totally still and not move a muscle or else the cream would collapse, and that would be the end of the world. (It all felt very logical at the time).

On Sunday I spent much of the day in the state of gentle delirium, and sweating out the fever with the help of paracetamol. By the end of the day I was running out of clean pyjamas, and I'd also had a long and in depth conversation with my teddy bear. (Again, it felt perfectly logical at the time, and I wasn't really aware that I was doing it). We rang the out of hours doctor in the afternoon, and after a number of calls I was rung by a doctor who after listening to be symptoms told me that it pretty much sounded like swine flu, and since I'm pregnant and an asthmatic they would put me on the medication for swine flu. I wasn't given tami flu, instead I had relenza (think that's how it was spelt) which is an inhaled alternative, and would not cross the placenta line to the baby. I sent out my flu buddy, aka my husband, to pick up the drugs for me, and stayed in bed. I think that evening I did make it out to the sofa (with a duvet) to watch some TV, but that's about the extent of my movements, apart from regular trips to the bathroom.

By Monday I was feeling pretty weak and feeble, well, I should say still weak and feeble, as I'd been feeling like that all the previous day. M had to go to work, but my friend Danielle popped around to see me, as did my Mummy. I think I may have tried eating a piece of toast at some point that day, but it didn't stay in me very long.

By Tuesday my temperature seemed to be back to normal, but I was very weak and woozy from the lack of food. That day and the next passed in a blur of watching television, trying to keep up with the fluids, trips to the bathroom (do you sense a theme?!) and naps.

Thursday, hm, that was yesterday. I was feeling well enough to strip the bed and wash the bedclothes and a bunch of towels on hot washes. I also ran the dishwasher and went round cleaning all the handles in the house with my dettol (anti-bacterial) spray. After that I collapsed in a heap. I managed to ate a few pieces of dry toast, and had some mashed sweet potato in the evening. My stomach had a mini-relapse, but I told it not to be such a sissy, and persevered with eating (but only small small amounts of bland things, aka dry toast). I considered getting dressed, but never quite made it.

Today is Friday. I woke up having slept reasonably well, and with no nocturnal tummy pains, which was the first time in days. It's now half eleven and so far today I've accomplished putting in a load of washing, eating some toast, and sitting at the computer for a couple of hours (oops!). This is the third post I've written (one of them will auto-post tomorrow). After I've finished writing this I will probably either take a nap, or at the least go lie on the sofa and stick the telly on. My stomach's been behaving pretty well so far, but my cough lingers on, and it feels like it's got the potential to get worse (meaning I'm a little bit wheezy, so I'm keeping an eye on my asthma), and I'm really tired and worn out, but other than that things seem to be looking up. My aim for the day is to have a shower and actually get dressed at some point. And probably go outside at some point - I haven't been out of the front door since Saturday.

Rach asked what were my symptoms. In brief they were stomach pain and diarrhea, headache, high temperature, cough, and at some points a sore throat. Although they're no longer testing to see conclusively if people have swine flu, I'm pretty convinced that that's what it was.