Swine Flu

I’m back! I’m back on the laptop writing again – nice. Mind you I’ve not really been away anywhere just trying out that Swine Flu thing for a bit of a laugh.

I think that one of the first things you realise when you have it is that it’s not really all that funny. I for one have been smack bang on the Swine flu joke bandwagon since it started, keeping my out for people in Mexican hats or oinking when they sneeze. I’m not bothering to tell any Swine Flu gags here as we all know them well enough. And then you get it and suddenly it’s not funny at all, in fact it’s pants.

One of the most pants things about it is that at the end of the day it’s just a cold really. I certainly know people and know of others who have had to put up with so much worse in their lives. People with Cystic Fibrosis, Cancer and millions of similar illnesses, suffer in ways that I don’t even want to imagine. People have lost loved ones in horrifically nasty ways; all I’ve had is a cold. And so I can’t complain I can’t jump up and down demanding sympathy; all I can do is grumble a bit.

Worse still the stupid Flu can’t even play fair, people within the same family don’t get it as bad as each other. Mind you I can’t even start to say how genuinely happy I am about that really. The first to succumb in our family was my eldest Daniel and he was pretty ill, there’s nothing worse than seeing your little one’s poorly no matter how trivial the cold may be in reality you still hate it. He was quite ill though and it’s taken him a while to recover. Then I got it and oh my goodness did it knock me over. I know all the jokes about man flu and how rubbish we are at being ill but I can’t remember ever feeling quite like that. The temperature went up towards 40 and stayed there for more than a week. I couldn’t do anything; I couldn’t concentrate to make a decision about the stupidest of things. Even trying to phone into work would take over an hour trying to work out how? When I finally phoned in I didn’t have to put on the special ill voice reserved for talking to your boss, because I really was struggling to speak. I’m now in the third week and still keep thinking it’s great when I do something ‘special’. Today I walked into town and back and absolutely smiled my head off at the achievement! How stupid is that? I had a cold – nothing more!

We got my youngest on the Tamiflu as soon as he started getting ill and thankfully he suffered only a very minor cold – presumably as a result, you never know for sure.

Of course the worst part of this Flu was to come – Jo got it! Now I absolutely wouldn’t wish my wife to feel as rough as I have this last couple of weeks but still she could have at least had a day off work! Women – they just love rubbing our noses in it. No of course she doesn’t need Tamiflu – stuff and nonsense. My lovely wife coughs a bit and says things like – “I feel a bit rough”. And then goes back to work. Long gone is any sympathy that I had been getting, suddenly I’m expected to make my own tea! I haven’t even got to the stage where I can say I feel fully back yet and still I’m suddenly being given evil stares for time wasting. I’m sure she’s thinking that I’ve made it all up, surely she has the same Flu as me and so what’s all the fuss been about? Swine Flu couldn’t even have the decency to back up my story. Already I’ve been downgraded to Man Flu potentially still to be downgraded again to “a man with a cold”.

Any way I am of course recovering nicely from Swine Flu and all will be well. Yet again I have been reminded how lucky I am. Not only have some families been devastated by Swine Flu at its worst but so many families suffer daily by so many horrible things that carry on for years. I spent a week where I would sit for half an hour trying to work up the energy to go to the toilet, but that was just a week and now it’s finished and even at its worst I still managed to make it there in the end.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this last couple of weeks thinking about my lot and the one thing that I’ve definitely decided is that I’m a lucky man, I know this but surely there’s someone out there who will make me a cup of tea? I’ve been ill you know! No chance of a biscuit with that is there?