by Erika Livingstone

Created on: July 25, 2009

Swine flu (or H1N1) began to breech the news in late 2009. I, like most people, didn't think too much of it. It's a flu, just wash your hands and drink fluids if you get it. Not a big deal. All flus are potentially fatal, so what makes this one worth suspending worldwide education? The sad part is, after I contracted H1N1, I don't think that way anymore. Here's what I experienced.

The symptoms to expect as projected by fightflu.com are typical to a flu. Coughing, runny nose, sore throat, muscle aches, loss of appetite, fever, and fatigue. These are all true, but like the WHO is working hard to instill in people, H1N1 is not like a typical flu, and so the symptoms are not quite typical.

First of all, when I contracted it I was a healthy twenty year old. I had strep-throat on top of mono when I was in high school, and both together did not make me feel as bad as H1N1 did. I am not sure when I contracted it, but I attend a busy university with a large international population, and of course, people who just love to travel. I imagine I caught it there.

The gestation, once I realized what was happening, took about 5-7 days. This may sound unlikely as the common cold takes about 2 days to begin showing symptoms, but I started noticing changes in my body about a week before the flu symptoms appeared. First of all, I was constantly too hot. It became difficult to sleep. I was constantly sweating, even while sitting down at the bus stop in the winter. I was showering twice a day, but the antiperspirant I use could not keep up. It was embarassing, of course, but I didn't think much of it at first.

A few days after this, I began to feel a bit of general malaise. I started drinking more water as I thought it could be related to the overheating. This got progressively worse, but it was easy to attribute this to a lack of sleep as the overheating made this difficult.

Mothers are great barameters for illness, and on the day that I truly began to feel honestly sick, she took one look at me and commanded me to lie down. According to her, my skin had turned yellow, and my eyes were glassy. Generally with a fever, a person appears flushed, and so this was unusually, and I am not sure why this was so. I did not feel well, so I took it easy.

That day I developed a slight cough. That is the thing to watch out for. The coughing is actually unbelievable. Over the next two days it developed into a respiratory disease that I still have problems with a year and a half after contracting

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