I had a flu at age 30 & it was exactly as you describe. It got so bad at times that if I'da had access to a gun I'da ended it all right then. Had to wait it out at home - took ten days to get rid of.
@skeeterI the first time I was aware I had ever contracted influenza was in late 1978 when I was in HS – the “Russian Fluâ€. That flu was a variant of H1N1 and while not a lethal, was related to the Spanish Flu and some believe because the variant was one which is unlikely to appear in nature due to antigenic drift – it was speculated that the outbreak was due to a laboratory incident in Russia or Northern China, though this was denied by scientists in those countries. It infected mostly children and young adults under 25; because a similar strain was prevalent in 1947–57, most adults had substantial immunity. It was deemed and epidemic because it only infected a small portion of the population and while virulent, highly contagious, it wasn’t particularly deadly.
I got up that morning feeling a bit more tired than usual but not sick and so went to school.
It was during 2nd period class when I started to feel unwell – hot flashes followed by chills followed by more hot flashes and chills, a really bad headache, a bit of a sore throat and body aches and fatigue, not being able to concentrate.
After the 3d period class I went to the school nurse’s office where there were many dozens of others with similar symptoms. When the poor overworked school nurse finally got to me, I had a 102 fever. But I had no way to get home other than taking the bus. My mother never learned to drive and my father worked construction so there wasn’t any way to reach him and my older brother and SIL were both at work and couldn’t be reached. But by now the school day was almost over anyway.
So I stayed in the nurse’s office until school let out and I boarded the bus. I sort of remember getting off the bus and walking the some 10 blocks home, but it was a struggle, there were times I had to stop to catch my breath because I felt so weak and also to look around me to make sure I was on the right path home because by now I was feeling a bit delirious and not 100% sure of where I was.
When I finally got home, I dropped my book bag and coat in middle of the living room and walked straight to my bedroom without saying a word and got into bed with my clothes still on. My mother came into my room to check on me and my fever was near 104 and my head felt like it had been split open by an axe. She had to draw the blinds and curtains in my room shut because the light hurt my eyes so. I was sick in bed for a bit less than a week. With that flu, the thing I remember most was the headache and fatigue. By the time I was well enough to go back to school I learned that nearly half of my school had been out sick with it the same week I was but the other half out the following week when I got back. Plus a lot of the younger teachers. In about 3 weeks it had run its course and no one else was getting sick.
In 2002 I got the flu again. I woke up that Tuesday morning feeling unusually tired and a bit out of sorts even though I had gone to bed early and thought I had gotten a good night’s sleep. I didn’t have much of an appetite but forced myself to eat a pastry and drink some coffee.
After getting to work, I felt very chilled, I put on a sweater and drank some hot tea but couldn’t feel warm, felt chilled to the bone. At around 9 AM my boss came by to ask me a question and was taken back how extremely pale I looked and asked me if I was OK. I told him I was but soon after I became nauseous and ran to the bathroom and threw up several times. I was also getting a sore throat by then. I went home, my boss insisting that I leave, at around 10A.
By the time I got home, and I don’t remember much of the drive, I threw up some more and also had diarrhea. Vomiting and diarrhea are not typical for influenza excepting in very young children but I had it. And by now my throat was on fire and I started coughing, and coughing a lot but a dry and unproductive cough. Then over the next few hours my chest became tight and congested and I developed rattling breathing, coughing that wouldn’t stop but didn’t bring anything up even as I could feel the congestion and soon my chest hurt with nearly every breath. I also had a high fever and body aches like I’d never had before. It felt like someone was taking a hammer and hitting and crushing every joint in my body over and over again, and even my skin and my eyeballs ached and while not possible, it seemed as if even my hair hurt.
Keep in mind that this all came on staring that morning with feeling a bit tired to feeling like I was going to die by late that afternoon. That’s influenza. And how it is much different from a cold.
I called my husband at his work and told him I was home sick and asked him to bring home some ginger ale and that he was on his own as far as making dinner. He asked if I needed anything else and sort of jokingly said, “yes - a coffinâ€. Later that evening, he wanted to take me to the ER but I decided it was better to try to ride it out and take Tylenol and stay hydrated and wait and see if it got worse the next day. Frankly the thought of getting off the couch and out from under the blankets, getting a shower, getting dressed, walking to the car … I was just too exhausted.
I spent the next 5 days on the couch or in the recliner (I knew enough to know that if you have chest congestion and want to avoid if possible pneumonia, it was better to sit up a bit rather than lying flat all the time). I was so miserable with the body aches and the coughing that I was tossing and turning, not sleeping much if at all, so I didn’t want to keep my husband up or increasing the chance of him getting sick by sleeping in our bed. Plus, being on the couch or recliner meant there was a TV to watch when I couldn’t sleep and a bathroom and a kitchen nearby and no stairs to go up or down.
I called my boss that Wednesday to let him know I was probably going to be out for the rest of the week and he told me that many other people (about half) in our department had gone home sick or called in sick, not to worry, he and those left would manage. Thank goodness it wasn’t a payroll processing week because that was my main job and at the time I didn’t have a backup.
By that Sunday I was starting to feel better and my husband convinced me to get a shower, get dressed and go to the grocery store with him, said the fresh air and the walking would do me good and I agreed.
But after we got to the grocery store, I insisted on pushing the grocery cart because I was still feeling so weak that I needed it to lean on.
I’ve been getting the flu shot ever since. The only year I didn’t was in 2012 and yes, I got the flu that year but it was not a severe case. But so did my very healthy 30-year-old nephew who ended up in the hospital with pneumonia.
