Back in May, I had a pretty good laugh over the swine flu hype.  I got sick, went to the doctor, had to wear a mask while waiting and took a funny picture of it with my cell phone camera.  Everything ended up okay, and eventually all the swine flu hype died down somewhat.

Fast-forward to last Tuesday, when a coworker comes in sick.  I’ll be honest, I’ve been “that guy” and its no fun when you become Patient Zero and end up infecting the whole office.  For some reason, nobody wants to sit next to you at lunch anymore!  The woman who sits next to Patient Zero starts to feel sick the next day, and I go home Thursday after lunch and start popping cough syrup and acetaminophen because I am getting worse as the evening rolls on.

I wake up on Friday running a 102-degree fever and feeling like crap.  Despite this, I manage to drag my tail to HEB to get some groceries for what I figure is going to be a rough next few days.  I spend the rest of Friday either in bed or on the couch, feeling crappy the whole time.  Despite this, I figure I’ll ride it out and decide to not go to the doctor.

Yes, I know.  Bad Idea. I’ve already heard it from both my parents, both my brothers, and a couple of friends.  ANYWAY…

That evening, a friend drops by to pick up a hard drive enclosure because his computer has gone to binary heaven.  He wisely decides to not enter the apartment.  Frankly, I can’t say I blame him, because I looked like hell and sounded worse when I answered the door.  We jaw for a bit, and then he goes on his merry way to do some PC-fixing.

I wake up on Saturday feeling a lot better.  The fever is down to 100 degrees, and I feel good enough to do laundry and a little shopping.  I’m clearly not running on all eight cylinders yet, because by mid-afternoon I’m feeling tired.  I decide to take a nap before the First Storm Manga coffee shop meeting that evening.

I arrive at the coffee shop and place my order.  The guy behind the counter notices I’m not quite myself, and asks how I’m feeling.  I tell him I’m getting over a bug.  He asks if its the swine flu, and I remark: “Well, if it is, I’m not impressed, because I’m already getting over it.”

I’ll take “Asking For It” for $200, Alex.

The meeting is going well as the evening progress, mainly because there really isn’t much to discuss.  We spend more time shooting the breeze than anything else.  At just past eight o’clock, my phone rings.  I spend a few seconds wondering why my boss would be calling me on a Saturday night before answering.  He tells me that a third person at work got sick and went home on Friday.  After running a 102-degree fever himself, he went to the E.R. (“Puss” I thought to myself) and there it was discovered that he had swine flu.

Up until that point, I had not even thought about it.  As nutty as it sounds, catching the flu isn’t that big of a deal to me, because I usually get a pretty nasty case at least every other year or so.  I become miserable for a few days, miss a few days of work, maybe see the Doctor, take some meds and life goes on.

I tell the guys, and I’m all but ready to pack up my Netbook, go home and quarantine myself for the next few days.  One of our members, who happens to be a 4th-year pharmacy student, just shrugs and says, “its not that big a deal.”  The guy that was using my PSP at the time, however, spent a good fifteen minutes in the men’s room washing his hands but not until after he completely drained its battery playing God of War.

Now THAT’S  hardcore.

I’m still sick, mind you, so I take off an hour later once the acetaminophen starts to wear off.  I get home and sit on the couch to rest for a bit.  I remember the guy I lent the enclosure to…and his wife and kid.  Fark.  I call him and let him know he might have a nice warm box of H1N1 sitting in his computer room, and even he seems pretty nonplussed about the whole situation.

I figure they’re fine, so who am I to get freaked out?  I stayed at home on Sunday (temp now 99 and change), and enjoyed some football as the new season began.  I woke up this morning with no temperature but I’m hacking and coughing all over the place, so I take a second day off so that I don’t end up literally spreading it all over the office.  The boss tells me that the other two folks are out as well, so I don’t feel too bad.

I will be at work tomorrow morning, but whether I stay at work is another matter entirely.  I will probably still be coughing a bit, but whether that will be enough to get me tossed out of the office remains to be seen.

If it seems like I’m brushing it off, then yeah, I suppose I am.  In my defense, I don’t know if I even have the swine flu.  The guy that did test positive for it does sit within arm’s length of me, but that doesn’t prove anything.  If it is the swine flu, then its pretty damn mild compared to some week-long nasty bugs I’ve had in the past, so Praise the Lord and pass the chicken soup.