Swine Flu :(

This past Saturday evening, my oldest son David mentioned that his throat felt a little scratchy. I gave him some hot tea, but about an hour later his mom came by and picked him up for the weekend, and I didn't think any more about it. When he came home Monday morning, he had breakfast, but seemed a bit quiet.

Then he said 'Kelly, I don't feel very good'. Uh-oh. Runny nose, a bit of a cough, congestion.

He didn't look real good, so I told him to go lay down. At that point, he didn't have a fever.

Within a couple of hours, he could hardly walk, was crying from the body aches and had a raging fever. It was obvious he wasn't going to school. He all but collapsed walking to his bedroom from the bathroom - I ended up half carrying him back to bed.

I called the doctor, who said it was definitely flu, and most likely swine flu (later confirmed). He said there was no reason to bring him to the clinic unless he started developing a rash with his fever, had trouble breathing, or any other more serious symptom.

Meanwhile, it was necessary to lower the fever - it was causing him to shiver uncontrollably, and he was having terrible body aches. He said it hurt his whole face just to drink a little water! My poor baby :( It was awful watching him suffer like that.

After a bit of a mix up at the pharmacy (they sent Johnny home with antibiotics and ibuprofen - NOT treatment for the flu!) I ended up with a decent anti-flu medicine and tylenol for the fever. By the evening, David was feeling well enough to eat a little something, and was drinking lots of gatorade and fruit juice.

He felt a little better on Tuesday, but still spent the majority of the day sleeping. His fever broke and he sweat so bad it soaked the bed sheets. I sent him off to the showers and changed the bed - and sprayed the whole room down with Lysol! (Franco has been sleeping on the couch through this whole thing)

Wednesday he still slept until nearly 1pm, but when he woke up was feeling MUCH better. Good enough to get up and start wanting to kick the soccer ball around - so I sent him to study for a couple of hours and do his chores :D

Today is Thursday, and he's heading back to school. So far (knock on wood!) no one else is showing any symptoms. So it looks like we may have weathered the H1N1 storm!

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Does Swine Flu Feel Like? (islandmedstudent.com)