A few weeks ago, I began to feel sluggish for a few days. Out of nowhere I suddenly felt cold. I lay down on the couch and piled on two down comforters to stay warm. As anyone who’s ever lived in Washington, D.C. in July knows, feeling the need to dive under blankets that time of year is just not normal. I spent an hour on the couch, shaking violently with the chills -- only to fling the blankets off the moment the shaking stopped. By then, my temperature was edging north of 102, and I was suddenly burning up.
In the next twenty-four hours, I had two more bouts of chills followed by a fever -- one of which found me waking up my wife at an unholy hour, semi-somnambulant and trembling, standing over her side of the bed screaming “Blanket!” as if were the answer to the meaning of life. My wife eventually calmed me down, but at that point it became clear my attempts at stoicism were failing to impress her. I found myself in the doctor’s office soon after.
After a long chat about my symptoms, the doctor confirmed I had a fever, rapid breathing, and dangerously low blood pressure. Then she hit me with the bad news. “In my clinical judgment, you have influenza,” she said, pausing uncomfortably. “But you have the flu in July. It’s not flu season, and nearly all of the cases of flu we are seeing right now are swine flu.”
I was never technically diagnosed with the swine flu, because that would have meant sending me to the hospital for a special test, and I wasn’t sick enough to justify the cost. But I work as a political journalist in Washington, and two of the biggest media employers in town had sent out company-wide memos announcing employees had the swine flu, while Senate staffers were battling an outbreak and people were commenting on my local list-serv that a number of my neighbors had it. I did not doubt the diagnosis.
But as I soon realized, I also had little reason to be worried. I’ll confess I was somewhat ignorant of details behind the splashy swine flu headlines -- but my doctor explained: swine flu is just a form of influenza-A. In other words, it’s no more dangerous than the regular old flu. It typically lasts a week -- though I was sick a bit longer.
There is one caveat, however. Swine flu is very, very contagious. (And disconcertingly, you’re most contagious the twenty-four hours before symptoms manifest.) The doctor found out I had two kids under the age of two and wanted me out of the house. I didn’t have a place to go, so I returned home and spent next week or so recovering -- confined to our postage-stamp-sized spare bedroom. While I felt lousy, the worst part of the ordeal was not being able to touch my wife or kids the entire time.
Meanwhile, when the news I had swine flu made it to the world outside my bedroom, I began getting many frantic calls and messages. If friends and relatives expressed any more concern, I worried they’d be measuring my coffin. Most people were just oddly incredulous. A friend on Twitter put it best: “Someone I know has The Oink? For reals?” I had to patiently explain many times over that yes I had swine flu, but no it was not a serious threat to my health.
Then again, I’m relatively young and healthy. I don’t mean to imply that the flu should not be taken seriously. Even in the twenty-first century it still kills people. And unlike previous media-hyped pandemic threats such as bird flu and SARS, it appears that you or someone you know might very well end up with The Oink. For reals.
But for the vast majority of people, death from the flu is a ridiculously unlikely outcome. Again, swine flu is no more dangerous than the regular old flu which afflicts millions of Americans and yet fails to garner banner headlines on The Drudge Report. So if you get the flu, go see a doctor and take the necessary precautions, since you’re likely contagious. But if my experience with swine flu is anything to go by, the best treatment for this particular public health threat is some basic knowledge about what it is. Once, you know that -- it’s not so scary.
Mark Hemingway is an award-winning DC reporter who contributes to National Review and other publications.