I don’t know about you, but when I first heard about this whole “swine flu” epidemic, I kinda rolled my eyes. YES, I know people were dying from it, but then I reasoned, “Don’t people die from the regular flu anyway? What is the big deal here?” I blamed it all on the media and their need to scare people whenever they possibly can. Which might still be true. Present publication excluded, of course.

It seemed like the whole trend had passed, and since I wasn’t hearing much else about an outbreak of cases in Eau Claire, I even stopped washing my hands again and resumed my drinking out of other peoples’ glasses. Wait ... who am I kidding? I never stopped doing that. (And don’t worry mom, I do wash my hands on a regular basis.) Anyway, I just disregarded the whole thing as something you “read about in the paper,” like my grandma would say, and moved on to bigger issues like the whole Jon and Kate saga.

Well, that was my first mistake.

I was at work when I got a call from my roommate. I knew it must be bad because he never ever calls me. He tells me that he was just confirmed as having Influenza A and his results were currently being sent out for verification on H1N1 (the supposedly less scary and more pig-friendly name for the Swine Flu).

My mouth just dropped. He had this dry cough for days, and we’d been blaming it on the flurry of drywall dust hanging in the air at the house. But just that day, I had started with the same dry cough that I instantly started suppressing. He told me that I should really think about going in if I started getting sick.

    I had run eight miles earlier that day and felt great. Sure I had the cough but that was nothing! Right? RIGHT? I went about my day, worried about my roommate, all the time thinking, “Thank God I’m not getting THAT!”

Well, that was my second mistake.

By the time I finished dinner, I realized I was in a bad place. I was feverish and coughing like crazy. Still I clung to my denial. I kept thinking, ”Noooo. Nope. Just allergies” (which I don’t even have).

I woke up the next morning and couldn’t move. I literally laid in my bed and just stared at the ceiling, wondering how exactly I could roll out bed, crawl to the bathroom, and get back to bed; all without actually moving. (This is impossible, in case you were wondering.)

I have very little recollection of driving to the urgent care later that morning, but apparently I did. This was probably my third mistake.

Have you ever been in the urgent care when someone walks in wearing one of those masks? You kinda sink back into your chair and try hard to look like you’re not equal parts amused and terrified of this person. Well, that was me.

But it got even better. I was immediately ushered into a negative pressure room by a nurse wearing gloves and a mask. She didn’t even bother to weigh me. I had to give an estimate. And let me say, I was probably a little optimistic with my number.

I didn’t even have to walk down to the lab. The lab came to me. While I was waiting, I kept getting wrapped up in warm blankets, which is something I’d like to done on a regular basis whenever I go to urgent care. (hint hint)

Sure enough. I was in the same boat as my roommate. I had to start treatment immediately and couldn’t leave the house unless I was in a body bag. (These were not the official instructions.) For four days, I laid in bed alone and discovered that there are few things worse than daytime television. I literally crawled to the bathroom sometimes and spent a lot of time talking nonsense. I distinctly remember calling my clock something highly inappropriate.

My mom brought reinforcements since I couldn’t go to the grocery store. If I was too sick to answer the door, she just left things like two-liter bottles of Sprite Zero and walked away quickly. I’m guessing the neighbors found this all very suspicious.

The test results eventually came back positive, which felt incredibly weird. I was starting to feel a little better and really wasn’t in the mood for spending more days cooped up in the house with trashy magazines and chicken broth. But I did, since that’s the protocol and I’m not messing with the CDC.

For the first time in my life, my employer actually requested a note from the doctor giving me permission to go back to work. I didn’t even want to milk it for more days because I was desperately missing things like organizing my file folders.

I’d say this whole experience has been all around terrible, but I did just step on the scale yesterday for the first time since I got sick. I think I’d like to have Swine Flu once more this swimsuit season.