Catching flu isn't end of world

I caught the flu last week. I didn't die.

I bring this up not only as a counter to all the news stories about the swine flu that cite the number of people who have died, but as a thank-you to modern medicine that quietly and routinely keeps the vast majority of us alive.

My bout with the flu started out normal enough. For me, getting the flu is a lot like going on a ride at Lagoon — alternating chills and fever, punctuated by bouts of nausea and that overall achy feeling — only it doesn't stop when the ride is over.

When I described my symptoms to the doctor at the health clinic and said I thought I had the flu, he agreed with me; he said he also thought I had the flu.

I asked him if I could take the test for swine flu to make sure. He said we could do that but he didn't see the point. He explained that the regular flu season ended with the winter and it only makes sense that anyone with flu symptoms in June no doubt has the swine flu strain, which has made an out-of-season guest appearance.

Either way, he said, the treatment would be the same.

And what would that be? I asked.

"Go home and do everything your Jewish grandmother would tell you to do if you had a Jewish grandmother," he said.

But at my insistence — I was a reporter and had a need to know such things — the doctor gave me the swine flu test anyway.

He pulled out a cotton swab.

"Three hundreds years from now, they'll look back at the things we did as positively barbaric," he said before explaining that he had to stick the swab up my nostril.

"That's OK," I said.

"I mean far up," he replied.

He then added in a more hopeful tone, "But the test only takes 10 minutes."

I braced myself as he inserted the swab up my nose.

After about a second he pulled the swab back out.

"That's it?" I asked.

"What did you expect?" he answered.

"I thought you said it would take 10 minutes."

He smiled. "The test on the swab to see if you have the flu takes 10 minutes," he said. "We're not that barbaric."

Things were looking up.

Ten minutes later, the doctor was back. "The test came back negative," he said.

"You mean I don't have the swine flu?" I asked.

"All I can tell you is the test is negative," he said. "But I think you have it. Look at your symptoms. The test isn't terribly accurate. That's another reason we don't like to give it." He then reviewed that part about it being June and so forth.

One good part about the swine flu, the doctor informed me, is that so far it is lasting only about half as long as the normal flu — three to five days. If I went home, drank plenty of liquids and rested, chances are I'd be good as new before the week was half over.