When I told my friends at home that I caught the Swine Flu most of them seemed to think it was funny!
The swine flu pandemic took place a couple of months before I moved to the States with only several cases being reported in the UK in the comparison to the US. Just our luck that we would catch it while studying abroad!
Basically, we got home on the Sunday night. The next day I had my first two classes, including my Basic Film Production class and International Women Filmmakers. I still wasn't too sure of where I was going or how the buses worked so it took me half an hour to get to my classes at Oldfather Studios! Doesn't help when the uni is built on a hill and you have to walk.
I'll save the stories of my first week of class for another time.
My last class, however, finished at 7pm (its not unusual in the States to have a classes either really early at 8am or finish til late like 9pm). That day I noticed I was developing a cough, I was sneezing a lot and I had a really runny nose. Plus - I wasn't sure if it had been the way I was sleeping - but my joints were starting to get sore (although it didn't feel too bad - like it felt like the pain would go away in a couple of hours). The symptoms got worse as the day went on, so by the time my class was finished and made my way home, I was exhausted.
At this point (still August) the evenings in Lawrence were still pretty warm and light outside - so I wasn't too worried about walking home alone. That was before I found out about the serial rapist. I did get lost which got me a bit stressed out as I wasn't feeling well....
As I was walking home though, my phone rang. It was my roommate, she said we had stuff to discuss when I got home.
I wondered what was up - was she okay? Had I done something wrong?
When I got home my roommates were sitting together in the living room. It had turned out that the frat guy whose RV we slept in at the Lake...had caught the swine flu! My roommate suspected she had it too because she hadn't been feeling well since the day before and we all had slept in the RV.
I must admit I did panic a bit. As far as I remember I tried not to overreact when she told me but I think it might have shown that I was worried. I felt really bad for her and hoped she would be okay - but I was concerned because I'm asthmatic. I had a really bad asthma attack when I was four years old and was hospitalised for a week where I couldn't breathe. The whole swine flu hype was still happening at the time and as far as we knew - it was worse if you had asthma.
So basically we decided to discuss our living arrangements. My roommate said she could either move out and live somewhere else temporarily or we could move out temporarily until she recovered. I was already feeling some of the symptoms and thought it would be pointless to move out. I didn't think it was necessary for her to move out either and our other roommates weren't bothered. So we stayed where we were, although my roommate moved into the living room to sleep instead.
I decided that if I still felt bad the next day I would go to the doctor and get tested - I had to get up early anyways to go to my first screenwriting class. Through the night I was coughing quite bad. Then when I woke up I had a horrible headache, couldn't stop sneezing and felt poor in general. So I went to the Watkins Health Centre.
Going to the health centre was a little scary. I was exhausted by the time I got there - it was only a 10 minute walk. As soon as I walked in there were people wearing masks and there was hand sanitiser everywhere. I felt it would be better to wear a mask myself in case I did have it - especially for other people's safety. So I waited with several other people, also wearing masks who suspected that they had it too.
So I spoke to the doctor and she was really nice about it. I gave her some general information about my asthma and she gave me some breathing tests and asked me about the symptoms. I had them all except the sore throat and fever, which were the more worrisome ones according to her. She said that if my roommate had it then I probably did too but that it hadn't affected me too badly and that I could still go to classes - because its contagious before symptoms show. So basically she wasn't sure that I definitely had it but assumed I did because my roommate was diagnosed with it. She prescribed me an inhaler to help with my breathing and advised me to take Ibuprofen or Tylenol to help ease the cold symptoms. To be honest - I just felt as though I had a cold.
When I came out of her office I bumped into another of my roommates, she seemed a lot more ill than me and it turned out she had it too!
As I only had that one class early in the morning, I decided to skip it to go to the health centre. I thought that would be best in case I did have it, but I took her advice and went to class the next day. I didn't have any other classes that day. When I got home I felt bad because my roommate (who had originally been diagnosed) was lying on the couch and felt really ill. Unlike me - she had all the symptoms including a sore throat and high tempearture. She couldn't move for exhaustion.
My other roommate who I bumped into at the health centre came home soon after me...she was just as bad. I felt bad complaining and going on about my asthma when my two roommates were in a worse state than me. There wasn't much we could do except let them rest until they started feeling better.
Funnily enough, our other roommate never caught the swine. She must have a really strong immune system - she did eat very healthily, besides the occasional bowl of cereal...
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