Swine Flu is NOT spread through blogs...

Thank goodness, right?

For those of you that are in touch with me on Facebook, you've probably already seen this; for everyone else, I thought I'd do an update for you on the health situation in France.

'Member how I said my husband was sick? And then the next post was about how I got sick too? So then, because I don't like to whine or moan, I mentioned it only once or twice more. Like, here, and possibly here? Um, so I might also have dropped a hint here....or here.

Oh my goodness, get me some cheese to go with that whine! Dang! Uh, didn't realize how much I talked about it. Or maybe I did but I just didn't care. Who knows? Not me. I know nothing.

Anyway. Here's the story.

So, my husband got sick first. He was sick for about a week. I got sick a few days after he did. I still have not gotten any better. The boys got sick right after I did. They never got as sick as my husband or I, but they were hanging pretty steady with it, as in they weren't getting better either.

The other day we noticed that their eyes were pink and watery and they were humongously puffy. Big Boy had bags the size of steamer trunks under his eyes and little boy had nice purple ones.

So at this point, the kids and I were feeling awful. Husband was doing better but last Thursday he came down with another fever. Saturday he went to Urgent Care and was diagnosed with the dreaded Swine Flu. Actually, the Dr. told him that he probably had the Swine Flu when he first came down with something a couple weeks before, but that it wasn't a serious strain and that he was okay, the fever broke, and he just needed some cough syrup with codeine so he could sleep and continue to let his body rest and heal.

At this point, I'm like, "Okay, so you got sick, gave it to all of us, and it was the Swine Flu?!" BUT, his fever had broke, the kids were okay, just having symptoms of a cold, and even though I still wasn't feeling well, I wasn't too worried.

I figured, okay, Swine Flu came and we kicked it's butt. Well, it didn't put us in the hospital anyway.

We took the kids to their pediatrician yesterday to a)let him know that they had possibly been exposed to the Swine Flu [we still can't say for sure that this is what husband had a couple weeks ago] and b) their eyes were freaking us out!

Pediatrician looked em over and they didn't have fevers or anything so it was all clear with the Swine Flu but Big Boy has a pretty good sinus infection going on. Little Boy has an ear infection. Both got antibiotics and are home from school a few days in order to get better.

Since I was working on the beginning of my 3rd week, nonstop, of being sick, I decided I'd head to the Dr. also and see what was wrong with me. Was I suffering the leftovers from a bout of the Swine Flu also? (okay, completely unrelated note here...every time I type the word flu I spell it flue and have to delete the "e". every.single.time.)

The nice doctor at Urgent Care told me that I may have possibly had a mild strain of the Swine Flu. (no "e" that time!) Because I didn't come in when I was in the throes of fever, we'll never know. Also; even if they would have tested me, said tests are inaccurate anyway. At any rate, whatever I had had moved into an upper respiratory infection. So antibiotics were prescribed and a super duper cough syrup. Let me tell you how super duper. It's a narcotic. Who ever heard of a narcotic cough syrup? Beats the codeine stuff to heck and back. Kinda scary.

To sum it up:

• We still do not know if any of us ever had the Swine Flu to begin with. The regular flu was only discussed to say that it had not been diagnosed in anyone in the state yet. All cases of the flu so far were being diagnosed as Swine Flu almost as a precautionary measure.
• The doctors seem to think that we did have it, but it was a mild strain.
• We don't know if the reason the illness has hung on is because it started as the Swine Flu or because it was the luck of the draw this time.
• My husband is sick again. He may have to go back to the Dr. and see if he has an infection that wasn't diagnosed the other day.
• 3 out of 4 of us are on antibiotics and hopefully on the road to recovery.

This is what we learned from the doctors:

• The Swine Flu is just a different version of the regular flu. It is a combination of the 3 big ones though. Regular flu, bird flu, and swine.
• Depending on your immune system it can affect you in different ways.
• Don't freak if you have a fever. Monitor yourself. Monitor your children. If you get a fever and chills, diarrhea, body aches, GO.TO.THE.DOCTOR.
• Better safe than sorry. It may not even be the Swine Flu. But, if it is, better to catch it early and start treatment.
• The stories we hear on the news are the extremes. Most of the people affected by this flu don't even know it. They get sick, they wait it out (like we did) and never know for sure if it's what they had. The ones we hear on the news are the people who for whatever reason, had either a deficiency in their immune system or they caught a very serious strain and it was unchecked for a bit.

This is only what I've learned from the doctor I spoke with. None of this is my opinion. It's just regurgitated Dr. speak. The vaccination is a personal choice, as it is with all vaccinations.

But I think it's best to say that if you think you have something serious, get to the doctor. If you don't feel well, but have no fever, just make sure you keep yourself hydrated and get plenty of rest.

Hope this helps any of you who may have been worried about H1N1 or who have been pondering this issue. If you have any questions that I didn't address (and that I possibly may know the answer to) ask them in the comments and I will e-mail you back, just make sure to leave me your e-mail in the comments, or e-mail me directly. My e-mail is available in my profile.