Parents: Mama Malone
Malone has been laid low by the lurgy and wonders if it’s swine flu
It’s my weekend “off’’ from my job of motherhood… The toddler is at her dad’s. And for once I am not out partying and bathing myself in vodka. No, I’m at home ill! I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve cleaned the flat. Rearranged the furniture, but still I have not cleaned the fridge – I’m not that bored! I’ve got a bad cold. And It‘s gotta be bad if I am staying in on my monthly weekend off without child. I’d hoped it was swine flu – you know, get it out the way before the winter comes and the anti-viral drugs have run out.
And like those women that book their caesareans around their vacations, it would have been handy that the toddler was away so I could lie in bed with the piggy flu! Ahem… But no, after spending seventeen minutes on hold to NHS Direct they told me, that whilst I had a headache, severe sore throat, constant sneezing, a tight chest and lung phlegm, I didn’t have swine flu as I was lacking a high temperature. If this is just a cold I dread to think what swine flu is gonna be like.
“The toddler is at her dad’s. And for once I am not out partying and bathing myself in vodka”
The prediction that a lot of us will get seriously ill from it doesn’t surprise me, if my experience of trying to get help is anything to go by. The swine flu info on the web doesn’t say what to do if you suffer from asthma and have swine flu. I rang the helpline, but it’s pretty difficult to navigate. I got cut off twice because I was so dazed with illness I hadn’t heard the options properly. In the end I gave up, rang NHS Direct, and their swine flu message told me to hang up unless I was seriously ill…
I explained my symptoms and they told me to call an ambulance if my asthma got worse, and they’d treat me in my own home or take me to hospital if I was really bad.
Last night I couldn’t breathe, my chest was tight; inhalers didn’t relieve it, which was pretty scary at 3am on my own. I put the phones by the bed (I slept in the toddlers single bed as it‘s more comfy than my sofa bed) and eventually awoke in the morning still alive. Phew. I worry how our system is going to cope with the swine flu pandemic.
Hopefully, I’ll be no worse than the normal flu…
