Flu Season

Before I left I had an appointment with my doctor to get some prescriptions refilled, and have a general check-up. I mentioned to him that last year I thought I got the flu (that's what everyone called it), and asked if I could get some kind of flu shot before I came down this year.

He told me that flu season is at the same time all around the world. Hmph! I didn't know that.

Well, turns out he was wrong. On Friday night I woke up in the middle of the night with extreme chills, a very high fever, a headache and body aches. I could not do anything to get warm, even with the big warm comfortor on my bed and the heat on. I got up and took some tylenol, but spent most of the night huddled up with my pillows which because they were absorbing my body heat acted like mini heaters. It was one of the worst nights I ever spent.

Saturday morning I drank some tea and ate some oranges. I don't really have any food in the house because there is not a lot of room to store food in the kitchen (Norma has taken up most of the cabinet space with cleaning supplies) and also I have not been able to figure out what to buy at the supermarket that I can cook. I spent most of the morning in bed.

Hernan called later in the day and while talking to him, he said he thought I had the flu. I told him my doctor said the flu season is in December. But then I remembered seeing ads on TV for flu medicines and stuff like that last year. I thought maybe my doctor could be wrong.

He had given me something called Tamilflu, which I was supposed to take at the first sign of flu symptoms. He said I would know it was the flu because it would be sudden and extreme. This was both of those. I went online and looked up flu symptoms. I found that the symptoms are fever, body aches, tiredness and very quick onset. This was the flu.

I started taking Tamilflu. The fever has broken. Now I just feel sweaty and tired. My stomach is kind of upset, but I think that might be from the medicine. I just looked up flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, and found a Wikipedia entry that says there are two flu seasons each year, one in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere. Turns out my doctor was wrong.