The Swine Flu Diaries: The GI Phase

Wednesday

I awoke on Wednesday morning with a sense of urgency I have not felt in years. It was time to sprint for the bathroom.... now! Unfortunately, I did not quite make it, and Mrs. Lone Coyote was awakened by yours truly vomiting in the kitchen sink. Thus, a new phase of the badness had begun. The fever came down a bit. But now the evil pig virus had taken up residence in my GI tract. I spent much of the day making frequent trips to the bathroom where my body tried to force the little bit of water and Gatorade I was drinking out either side. Yes, you read that right. This wonderful virus features both vomiting and diarrhea as symptoms. Really fun times.

The body aches and headache were still there. I also was beginning to get a really bad sore throat. And I was so weak from all of the activity that it was hard to even sit on the couch for bad television. Remember that thought I'd had the previous day about how slowly could a day pass? This day was sinking to a new low.

And then our prince charming rode in on his white horse to save the day. Well, not really. But our primary care physician did call and suggest we start Tamiflu to provide a quicker resolution to the whole disaster. I was right on the cusp of the 48-hour widow for symptoms, but he thought it was worth a shot. A few hours later we had Tamiflu dropped off at our door by some kind folk who fetched it for us so we would not infect any more people at the pharmacy. We took our first capsules and I instantly felt better. Gotta love that placebo effect, or just a natural lull in my GI misery that happened to coincide with this capsule. Help had arrived.