I agree. Nothing in the CDC report indicated why it was so high. It may be related to it's pestiferousness.

Hey Merc, is your wife OK? Tell her I hope she feels better soon.

Yea, turns out it was some minor flu. Couldn't have been H1N1, lacked many of the symptoms or severity. Thanks for asking. She is on the up turn.

yea! Lucky her having YOU to look after her. :D If only I could be so lucky...

Okay, prepare yourself for an urban-legend-style connection.

My Mum used to work with a woman whose Mum is the Practice Manager (chief non-medical honcho) of the second-nearest surgery to us. She contracted swine flu. In a minor way, but she passed the £20 test. Apparently this is what medical staff (semi-seriously) use to categorise their patients. You think you have flu. You're gazng out into the garden/ yard/ back wall. You see £20 fluttering in the breeze. If you go and get it, it's not flu.

I've not heard of anyone else with it - despite my parents' ridiculous paper trumpeting 350 deaths a day!!! (potentially). But I admit I know very few people anyway. My CPN is ill, but that's the thrid time she's been off sick since April.

This after all the good things you've had to say about the NHS...!

Meh- the NHS is a good thing. But people are people all over the world, difficult, doubting, obstreperous. The "test" is a reaction to people bigging up their illness.

In my mind, the same applies as a migraine test. People clutch their heads and moan about having a migraine while sitting at their desk and working! Or my ex-landlord having one all day... but listening to the radio and making himself real coffee and real porridge (from oatmeal)...

No.

If you have a migraine you hope you have a brain tumour, because at least that means you'll be on opiates until you die.

And if you have influenza you don't behave like someone who fancies a few days off work. Maybe Brits don't make the best Doctors though :)

I am taking Aden to be tested for swine flu today. He was exposed to someone over the weekend who was quarantined last week, and now he's got a very sore thoat and is complaining of feeling really cold which of course is usually a indication that there's an imminent fever.

Anyway, hopefully it's something benign.

I hope it all turns out well. Current estimates are that there may be an infection rate as high as 40% world wide.

The doctor has quarantined Aden for 7 days and started him on tamiflu under suspicion of swine flu due to the fact that he clearly has a viral infection in his throat, has headaches and has been in contact with swine flu in the last 72 hours. Basically our whole household is in lockdown now, but so far Aden is the only one with symptoms. Hopefully it'll stay that way. I've confined him to his room and the back entertainment area with some bacterial handwash and face masks for whenever he comes into the rest of the house, which should be infrequently as he has all the facilities he needs in the area I'm asking him to stick to.

Anyway, he doesn't seem too sick just at the moment, so with any luck, he wont get too sick at all.

My thoughts are with you Ali - here's hoping he either doesn't have it or is one of the many people who get only weak symptoms.

Keep us up to date.

Thanks matey. I feel pretty confident that things will be pretty right. As far as I can tell I've done everything right and there should be little chance of transmission to other family members. Aden is being pretty good about his quarantine too, and his teacher have sent home work for him, so all in all, it should be pretty good.

Mav is just enjoying his extra holiday! Daryl is enjoying one too now because his work has a policy about swine flu and it states that he shouldn't come to work if anyone in your family has or is suspected of having swine flu.

Any news?

Healthy young lad, appropriate medical attention, supportive family (including Ali's cooking) = he'll be fine.

he probably thinks being locked in a room with a TV, internet and playstation is the best sickness he's ever had.

Well he's been doing homework today, and we're just about to start working on a poetry assignment (which I think looks really fun but he's not so keen), so he's doing fine. He's a bit off colour, but nothing too drastic, and he's still well enough to try a bit of back chat every now and then, so I'm pretty sure he's not going to die.

Tonight we're having chicken risotto and some kind of vege loading somehow. Maybe a ragout or something like that, or maybe just a nice yummy fresh salad.