My Experience with the Swine Flu and Subsequent Quarantine

My Experience with the Swine Flu and Subsequent Quarantine - Honestly, I am not sure where I caught it. Perhaps it was at the Fourth of July festivities when we joined several other families, on blankets and underneath the stars, to watch the fireworks. A couple of the kids there were coughing, wheezing, and recovering from fevers they had encountered earlier in the week.

Maybe one of my kids brought it home from ... where? Swim team practice? I don't know. In some sense, it does not matter where it came from, but come it did.

Late Tuesday night, I was driving home from a swim meet. All four kids swam in the meet, and my oldest son was with me while the other kids were with their mom. We usually have two cars at the meets because I come directly from work.

In the ten minute ride home, I went from feeling great to feeling really drained. It was that fast. My son and I had been talking about the computer game that he is programming - he's developing a game as a way to help learn how to program - and when we pulled into the driveway and shut off the car, we were still talking. I started feeling surprisingly dizzy - not a completely new thing, since frequently my Parkinson's Disease (PD) symptoms include dizziness, but this was more intense than usual. I excused myself from the conversation and stumbled inside.

The next morning, I got up early for my tennis class. I was feeling weak, but I thought that primarily was due to staying up so late with the swim meet the night before. I was coughing a little and my throat hurt a little, but I went on to the tennis class and then to work afterward.

My body took a downhill plunge that morning, and by noon I was feeling miserable. I went home and crawled into bed.

The next morning, my fever was sitting at about 102F - that's high but manageable - but what really hurt was my throat and chest. My throat felt as if it were on fire; my chest was coughing non-stop.

My wife joked that maybe I had the swine flu. I didn't think so - it felt like a normal cough / cold / fever, no big deal.

I drank plenty of fluids, tried to sleep as much as possible, and just took it easy.

My wife and two youngest kids left for Myrtle Beach that morning, heading down to vacation with some family friends. My oldest two stayed home.

The following morning, I woke up and realized things were getting worse, not better. I took my temperature - 103.9F. I hadn't had a fever that high for nearly twenty years. It's amazing what the body does and how the mind thinks when the fever gets high enough.

Lying in bed, I was wondering how sick I needed to feel before going to the hospital. I figured as long as I wasn't so delirious that I couldn't ask rational questions like that, I was probably okay.

I was freezing inside the house. I piled on layers of clothing and lay in bed beneath several strata of blankets, but the fever didn't break. It kept pounding, pounding away at my head, my chest, my body, and the aches and chills and soreness and throbbing persisted throughout the day.

I couldn't read, I couldn't watch television, I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything. I was restless and uncomfortable. I also couldn't take most of the normal cold / cough medicines because of conflicts with my PD medication.

By evening I was back down to 102F, and I stayed there pretty much through the weekend.

Monday morning the fever had subsided to about 101F, and I thought about going into work. I decided to see the doctor first, to make sure that it would be okay to be around people.

She took some tests. Right away, she ruled out the seasonal flu. She's convinced it's the "pandemic" flu - H1N1 (swine) flu. I'm awaiting the results from the CDC in Atlanta.

The CDC recommends a seven day quarantine after the fever has gone. The doctor told me that I absolutely was not to go into work this week.

I wonder how many people have the swine flu and don't realize it? I wonder how many people go out in public the moment they start to feel better?

No wonder this thing is spreading so quickly. I'm trying to do my part. I was so miserable when the fever was at its peak, I don't want others to have to go through this. I'll happily participate in the quarantine if that's what it takes.

How about you?

If you've been sick, especially with high fever and cough, I urge you to get checked out, and if necessary, avoid being around people for a week. It's the least you can do for your friends and the community around you.