THE SWINE FLU AND FLATULANCE

I came down with the swine flu two weeks ago yesterday. It hit me all of a sudden, like running smack dab into a brick wall. BOING ING ING ING . . . Suffering Succotash, (suffering being the main focus.) I was fine one minute, out shooting pool and playing shuffle board with a couple of friends then, ; sore throat, fever, body aches, heavy sinus drainage. It carried on the rest of the night and into Sunday until around 5 PM when the fever broke and I finally started feeling human again. I was feeling alright, not 100% but alright, Monday morning when I went to work. The only thing I couldn’t shake was the cough but it wasn’t that bad. Tuesday morning, I was feeling 100% again, no cough even. Then comes Wednesday, when I woke up feeling pretty rough. I considered calling in sick, but I didn’t want to take any time off from work, so I go in anyway. Bad decision as I went from feeling rough to feeling like I was on my very last leg . I couldn’t focus mentally and my physical strength was waning fast. My supervisor finally told me to go home. Thursday I felt as though I was starting to get over it, but then Friday evening I relapsed again, coughing, body aches, and fever on and off. Saturday, one week after first coming down with it, I’m feeling a little better and was pretty stir crazy having been cooped up in the house most of the week. So a friend and I went to the movies and then for a drive out to the Multnomah Falls . It was nice getting out of the house but it wore me out. Sunday, instead of feeling better, I relapsed yet again. OMG, this is getting to be pretty ridiculous. I just can’t shake this thing and my back is hurting from the coughing. I thought I had been coughing hard until Sunday night when the coughing spasms really hit. I finally got out of bed and took an Antihistamine to dry up some of the drainage. It helped and I was able to sleep through the rest of the night. The rest of the night?! What am I saying??? I slept until early Monday evening only waking long enough to go to the bathroom, get a bite of breakfast, and later lunch, and moving from my bedroom to the couch in the living room. I figured I’d lay on the couch and watch TV, so I started watching a movie I had recorded on the DVR. I watched about five minutes before I drifted off to sleep. When I wake up, I rewound the movie back to the last scene I remembered and watch for about five minutes before drifting off to sleep again. I repeated this about four times (yes, sometimes I’m a LITTLE slow) before I just turned off the TV and slept. Finally Tuesday I felt better. There was a little bit of cough but not much thank goodness because I had a root canal scheduled. (Yeah, I know, I’m sooooo lucky!) To make matters even better, after two and a half hours of root canal procedure, the dentist tells me he could not finish it because one of my roots curves at an odd angle and has developed a calcium deposit blocking the end of the root. He said he put stuff in my tooth to dissolve that and then on December 11th he will go back in to finish it. He said it will take about another hour. (Oh yeah, I really am sooo lucky.) Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I go to work and am feeling a little better each day. One thing I’ve noticed though, starting on Thursday, I developed a new symptom. Every time I would cough, I would also fart. These are not SBD (silent but deadly) farts, they are short, LOUD farts. But in spite of that unusual symptom, I continued to feel better and the coughing lessened in frequency, so I was really looking forward to a nice weekend of feeling better and better. YEAH RIGHT!!! Saturday I wake up with full blown symptoms again, including the flatulence. This new bought continues all day and into the night. I woke up this morning with such a terrible sore throat that I could barely swallow. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh. Will it ever stop? I’m starting to feel better as the day wears on. I hope this is the last relapse. I would really like to be able to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with my son once he gets here. But I’ve got to tell you something. I have never had the flu, or even a cold and cough, that included a symptom of flatulence. Pretty danged weird . . .