The Hospitalizer

My son Dylan got taken down by "swine flu" (H1N1) when he was twelve.

September 19, 2009

Coming down with respiratory flu is never fun. Most of us probably remember the "swine flu" pandemic of 2009-10, when death rates rocketed and people all over the world wore surgical masks whenever they ventured outside. That one hit close to home for us, when my youngest child contracted the disease. Dylan was an extremely healthy, athletic twelve-year-old who was fine one day and knocked off his feet the next. For a full week he was scary-sick.

That particular flu, H1N1, is especially deadly because it targets healthy teens and adults as much as it does the young, the elderly, and the immune-compromised. H1N1 is, in fact, the same strain of flu responsible for the deadly Spanish Influenza pandemic that infected 500 million people worldwide and ultimately killed 3-5 percent of the world's population, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people. Ironically, the Spanish Flu pandemic began exactly 100 years ago this month, running from January 1918 to December 1920.

This season's predominant strain of flu is the more traditional H3N2, which mostly targets the very young, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems, as we normally expect from the flu. However, H3N2 is also a master of mutations, making it unpredictable from year to year. It has outdone itself this season, outfoxing the vaccine and overwhelming health workers, hospitals, clinics, and flu-related supplies with unprecedented numbers of the infected. According to reports from the CDC, the 2017-18 flu season is on track to become the worst since the 2009-10 "swine flu" pandemic. As of January 9th, recorded cases were up more than 500%. And it hasn't peaked yet.

The CDC estimates that about 12,000 Americans die during a flu season considered to be "mild." This year, there is concern that the number could be closer to 56,000. Most deaths so far have been among the elderly, but the number of pediatric deaths has been unusually high, as well. Particularly frightening are the many reports of healthy adults dying within days of their first flu symptoms.

In fact, I read that this flu was dubbed "the hospitalizer" in Australia, the continent that suffered from their own H3N2 epidemic throughout their winter flu season before it moved on to us. Keep in mind, the autumn/winter flu season in Australia is from about March to August.

Homemade chicken noodle soup! Thanks to those 

who brought us dinner every night for a full week!

Why am I so interested in this year's flu epidemic? I can't really recall the last time I had a case of respiratory flu, or if I ever really had it before. If I did, I was young and healthy enough at the time to throw it off quickly, like a bad cold. This year, though, I came face-to-face with H3N2. And it was ugly.

And I wasn't alone. I can't remember any other year in which so many people I know, and in many cases their entire families, have been afflicted by such serious illness over such a short period of time. This year's flu doesn't mess around. It moves in with two suitcases and gets down to business.

I (foolishly) expected to be healthier after I retired in June. After all, I'd no longer be surrounded by a classroom full of coughing, sniffling teens every day, right? Not so. In November, I got an especially virulent stomach flu that put me down for nearly a week. Then, on December 5th, I came down with a head-cold and a mild sinus infection that lasted a little more than a week. Not the worst ever, so I congratulated myself on surviving so well. I even told a few people that I should be done with illness until next year. Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.

Just one week after the cold was gone, I was stricken one evening with a horribly raw, burning pain in my throat. What? Not another cold so soon! It was a Thursday evening, December 21st, and Christmas Eve was only three days away. I had plans! This couldn't happen!

But it did. I was diligent in drinking plenty of fluids, resting, and taking home remedies like vitamin C, garlic oil, echinacea, and essential oils. Nonetheless, on Saturday afternoon my temperature hit 101 degrees, accompanied by the most awful body aches of my life and a horrible case of the chills. I shook from head to toe, and feared that I'd bite the thermometer in half (next up, mercury poisoning?) because my teeth were chattering so badly. When Mark woke me to drive him to work the next morning (Christmas Eve), I could hardly stay upright. My temperature was still 101 and the "roadkill" feeling was even worse.

My daughter Sarah, bless her, came to my rescue. She drove her dad to work, and then she took me to a walk-in clinic (the only one in town open on a holiday), where a nasty nose-swab confirmed H3N2. After taking me back home so I could go back to bed, Sarah picked up my ridiculously expensive Tamiflu prescription ($70, not covered by my insurance) and then set me up with chicken noodle soup, saltine crackers, and ginger ale before she went back home. 

I discovered later that Tamiflu is only effective if started within 48 hours of initial symptoms. By the time I took the first dose, it was more like 60 hours after my sore throat began, so I'm not sure whether my $70 was well spent. The drug somehow inhibits the flu virus from replicating itself as  quickly, so the hope is that it gives the body's own immune system more time to fight it off.

Now that I'm on the mend, I shouldn't complain. It's true that I was miserable--miserable--for more than two weeks, and the timing was awful, affecting both Christmas and New Year's Eve. All I could do was sit in a corner, away from my uninfected family, and watch my kids prepare the meals, carry out our traditions, and wait on me. I'm deeply grateful for their diligence, but being so sick sure puts a damper on things.

On the other hand...I survived. I've read of so many others hospitalized with pneumonia and so many others who died unexpectedly, far too young. So I am grateful. While I had all the usual symptoms listed on the health websites--sore throat, fever, body aches, chills, congestion, cough, headache, vomiting (mostly phlegm), diarrhea, and exhaustion--the congestion never went deep into my lungs and the mucus stayed clear during the entire illness. 

Although, I did have the most interesting wheeze from my upper respiratory tract for almost four weeks. It was constant and annoying and kept me awake at night, but it was never boring. Sometimes it sounded like a tiny flute, sometimes like a newborn kitten mewling, sometimes like a miniature goose honking, and other times like a whole variety of sound effects! I don't miss it.

It took more than two weeks, but eventually most of the symptoms disappeared. The only lingering effects are some continuing drainage, an intermittent cough, and most of all, exhaustion. That's the part I'm still fighting, trying to regain my strength even though it's been 4 weeks and 5 days since this whole thing began. Don't get me wrong, I'm much, much better now, and long past the contagious stages. I just find I have to portion out my energy on a daily basis. Like, today I will do dishes; tomorrow I will do light shopping; the next day I will do laundry; and so on. One task pretty much drains me for the rest of the day.

At the end of the first two weeks of illness, I felt slightly more human, so...well, you know how we are: I expected to be able to jump right back into regular life. I tried, but I crashed, and I crashed hard. Literally, just looking at the cover of a magazine and thinking about reading it (because what else could I do all day?) made me unimaginably tired. So I cried a lot and despaired of ever getting my life back.

That's when the wonderful ladies from church stepped in and took care of us (by then, Mark was sick, too, although he recovered much faster than I did, being much younger than me). For an entire week they brought us a delicious warm meal each evening. We enjoyed thick, rich beef stew with garlic bread and apple pie; homemade lasagna and garlic toast; garden salad topped with rotisserie chicken, and rolls on the side; handmade tamales; homemade chicken noodle soup and French bread; and chicken fajitas on low-carb tortillas. Thanks so much to the Rogers, Halls, Badgers, Stewarts, and Prestwiches for their love and generosity! I didn't feel like I deserved such attention, but it made a huge difference.

The past week has been better, as long as I don't push too hard. I'm confident that I'll be back to full strength in a week or two, able to resume my normal life. That said, I've given my kids instructions that, in the event I ever contract the flu again, they're to take me directly to the hospital and tell the staff to hook me up to the necessary IVs and sedate me for about four weeks, because I never want to experience being that sick again!