I’m good with colds. They hit me just a few times a year, they hit me rather hard, but usually for no longer than one or two bad days, and then I’m good to go. It’s a real bummer to get cold symptoms when having a near 1-yr old running around the house, because the very last thing anyone wants is a sick 1-yr old, and thus begins the cycle of passing along the cold for months. So it was a bummer the other day when, upon returning from the park, I felt cold symptoms coming on rather strong. My wife suggested I take a midday nap, which I never do, but this time I took her up on the offer. She had everything under control so why not sleep it off?
When I woke an hour later from the nap, I knew right away, this was no cold. I woke up ultra achy, with fever, and like I had just left a boxing match. My wife came in to check on me and I relayed my amateur diagnosis, “I have the flu”. I haven’t had the flu in thirty years. Where did I possibly get this strain and in April no less. I got myself to a walk-in clinic because it was after hours and a weekend and fifteen minutes after a silly feeling nose swab, the diagnosis was confirmed. Flu. And thus began days on Tamiflu, quarantine in my bedroom, disinfecting anything I went near in the last two days, mask wearing, and worst of all – distance from my son.
I knocked the flu in two days flat. Take that.