H1N1 Here

H1N1 has hit our roost....

When Bantam10 got sick over a week ago, we figured he probably had what the friend he'd been with had, and we didn't think much about it, until Bantam4 came home from trick-or-treating with friends with a glazed look and a high fever.

Papa Rooster whisked him off to the emergency room, since it was a Saturday night, thinking that if it was H1N1, he needed to get on Tamiflu right away, given his medical history of pneumonia at 5 weeks of age. He hasn't had any respiratory problems for two years, praise God!--but we know he has some scarring of his lungs that could mean he'd get pneumonia again, especially from a virus like the H1N1.

At the ER in Kenosha, they said they weren't even testing everyone who came in anymore, because 100 percent of the cases of flu they were seeing were H1N1. They did test B4, however, and started him on the Tamiflu right away.

Blondechick was the next to fall, with a cough and headache beginning on Sunday, and a fever on Monday, and then B14 woke up on Tuesday morning with a cough and a headache, but no other symptoms. I let him go to school, but instructed him to call me if he got worse, and later on, he did go to the school nurse, who said he couldn't go home, since he didn't have a fever.

But it was that day that we got the call--B4 officially had H1N1. So that meant the others probably did too, and as we looked back, we realized that Papa Rooster must have had it too, even before B10 got sick--right after he returned from a business trip. He'd had laryngitis with it too, and hadn't been able to preach for two Sundays! His vocal chords still aren't back to normal.

Blondechick went back to school after her fever was gone, but B14 was hit harder and missed Wed-Fri., and they all stayed home from theater rehearsals this weekend. I heard that H1N1 is sweeping through our small cast--and Seussical opens in less than 2 weeks! At least our kids will be completely over it by then--the silver lining in this cloud.

I'm the most recent one to develop symptoms--the cough and headache began on Thursday, then on Friday I had a very slight fever and felt much worse. As it happens, I am right now in the category of people with underlying health concerns (potentially--they are doing testing), so my doctor prescribed the Tamiflu for me right away. It really cut B4's symptoms down to almost nothing, so I am hoping my bout with this will be just as mild!

Now we are just hoping that B18 and Chicklet7 get it quick and get it over with--though we know this is nothing to take lightly. We are grieving with friends from church--the husband's father just died of complications of H1N1. He was in perfect health, and only in his 50's. I am praying hard for the one pregnant woman at our church who has H1N1 in her family right now, as well as our friend Barbara, who finished up treatment for cancer a couple months ago, so her immune system is still recovering from the barrage of chemo and radiation. She is completely cancer-free at this point, though--such an answer to prayer!!!

How are my readers faring? I gather from Facebook that H1N1 is everywhere right now. Have your families had it yet?