Flu of Early 05 Post-Mortem

Here's the post-mortem Flu of Early 05 post. Nobody died, but millions of flu viruses, eventually, did. (Actually, viruses aren't really alive... they can't reproduce... they need another cell to become a host and provide the materials and mechanisms for copying.) I hate those little bastards.

It's been nine days since flu symptoms quickly presented. Fastest cold onset I've experienced. Heather was already sick at that point. Since then I've gone to hell and back. This was one of my worst illnesses ever. The body aches were what distinguished this one. They were incapacitating. There were a couple days around Thu, Fri, Sat of last week where both of us were absolutely miserable. Heather was consistently two days ahead of me. She's been at work for about two days now.

I'm feeling much better, but not out of the woods yet. Still very tired at times throughout the day. Lots of junk still in my lungs. Lots of loogies. My throat feels fine but there's this sense that a loogie is always there... makes me not want to eat a lot. The coughing fits still happen, but don't hurt as much because my throat is OK. I did my first workout since getting sick about an hour ago. I feel pretty good, but I can tell that I'm not 100% yet.

What caused it? I can blame our unborn first child, right? He/she can't read yet. The pregnancy has dealt a blow to Heather's immune system. She picks up stuff more easily. My mother was the same way and was sick through her pregnancy with me. So colds that I normally would fend off in, say Publix (where we think Heather picked up hers), I get because I live with it while Heather's sick. I didn't get her first cold/flu. But I got this one. So just being around a sick wife isn't everything... the flu must be strong enough to mobilize.

The scary thing was when Heather was essentially a zombie for days. She didn't respond to much. I had to learn to not ask what she wanted, but just provide things. Then things got even scarier when both of us were horribly sick and essentially unable to get out of bed. Then things got even scarier when the ice storm threatened to prevent us from getting to a hospital if we needed to. By then we were feeling a little better, but still.

Heather concluded that this illness was worse than her first preggers illness.

The recovery has been slower than we'd have liked. But I think I say that on every illness I have. Wanting to get back to training makes you impatient.

What did we do wrong? Not much. We forced ourselves to eat, sleep and drink water. We got Heather into the hospital when she needed it. We took an expectorant when we absolutely needed it to breathe, but otherwise stayed off the drugs. I think that we dealt with this flu as well as we could have.

So that was the Flu of Early 05 in hindsight.