The Swine Flu Days

For the past 4 weeks the delights of swine flu have been circulating within my house. First down was husband, followed by girly a week or so later, followed by boyo & eventually me. Now let me say... on the 'not' so overly helpful government website swine flu is defined by:

A raised temperature & 2 or more of the following:-

- sudden cough

- sore throat

- aches & pains

- general tiredness

- sickness

- diarrhoea

a true case, as we have all suffered to find out is actually every damn one of those symptoms following in slow progression & an everlasting lung damaging, incontinence inducing cough!

Husband being first sufferer - I valiantly offered to go & get Tamiflu - when eventually found all relevant identification for sufferer & self, negotiated the on the door security, queued up leaving the appropriate 1/2 metre gap between queue occupants, for what was such a long time, I felt a sense of camaraderie & spirit of the Blitz with my fellow queue'rs

Once back home with the prized Tamiflu, glass of water in hand, have quick glance through safety information and decide that the A4 list of common & rare side affects including, hallucination, heart irregularities... etc... etc.. which maybe fatal... sickness... nausea... nightmares.. Decide after all won't bother & will ride it out.

And many sleepless nights follow as continuously checking children are still breathing, not suffering complications, haven't lapsed into coma, have fevers under control & haven't dropped dead!

Being a sufferer of swine flu completely inhibits ability to carry out any normal life functions i.e. cook, clean, sleep, walk, shop.... and house thus ends up practically needing a visit from Kim & Aggie, and weeks of super noodles, waffles, take away food & packet soup with the occasional carton of orange juice, litres of ice-cream & bloody lollipops start to take their toll! Particularly when combined with diet of daytime television.

And what have I learned from the experience:-

1) highly likely daytime television & convenience food are root cause of depression

2) swine flu renders one absolutely unable to order anything like the correct food shopping due to huge brain issue with thinking

3) people avoid you at all costs! & thus end up a hermit with a serious Twitter-holic condition

4) after 4 weeks of either being ill or suiting ones self because mummy is ill, children are

notoriously difficult to bring back into any sort of routine or discipline!!!

5) finally Calpol only comes in ridiculously tiny bottles, which are disallowed to buy in bulk as

you are viewed as a neurotic idiotic careless person unable to administer 5ml as oppose to 5 bottles

dramatic ..... me .... Never!