Pig Tales: The Story of a Swine Flu Survivor

By: Kejal Vyas

Posted: 11/17/09

Amidst all the worry over swine flu, the confusion over vaccines and Tamiflu shortages it would be good to hear from a voice of reason to make sense of all this brouhaha. Well, we rejected such a voice in favor of this shamelessly sensational report. Your News Editor came down with the swine flu and this is the story. Prepare to be frightened! Alarmed! …And bored!

Two weeks ago on Tuesday morning, I woke up with an itchy throat. By my final class of that day my body began to ache, but I thought it'd go away. When I got home I figured I'd take a nap and then head on to work. Three hours later I had missed work and puttered around like an old woman.

Hollywood has always promised me a glorious time of movie-watching and magazine-reading, lying patiently in waiting for me the instant I fell ill. I was ready to live out the dream, wrapped in 20 blankets and about half as many pillows, a steaming mug of tea, a red nose, a heap of discarded tissues, and the best place on the couch in order to delight in what the tube had to offer.

It actually goes something more like this: hours of drugged-like sleep where one is dead to the world (and by extension, the television) or restless consciousness, where the only thing on your mind is the newest ache or cough. I had no pile of tissues and I could not stomach tea, which in healthier times is a favorite drink of mine.

Of course, I did not know I had swine flu at the time. The official diagnosis came one week after I had begun to feel better and had finished my medication.

In my pre-lapsarian state I was unaware of the portent of my illness, but I can say that I have never felt so sick in my life. I cannot compare it with regular flu, since I have never had that, but I am sure that swine flu outclasses it.

I literally could barely move or sit up without feeling tired and dizzy. Splitting headaches accompanied most of my day, along with the aforementioned aches. My stomach also reacted against the Tamiflu, which was also due to the fact that I wasn't eating much, but I had intense cramps.

The only time I could sustain any sort of movie-like activity was at the two poles of my illness: when I began feeling symptoms of the flu and when I began to recover from it. So, here is how I spent time just in case anyone else is coming down with the flu and wants to know the options. For my two other readers, here are reviews of what I read and watched.

Magazines: I reached to these first, but in the early parts of your sickness the small print may be tough on the eyes. It was mostly back issues of magazines that I read, some very old and some not so old. There is a great article in the February issue of Vanity Fair called "The Bush Years." People inside the Bush administration dish secrets about what it was really like to be in there. Apparently, at the final G8 summit, good ole George bid his fellow attendees a farewell with the words, "Goodbye from the world's greatest polluter." The article is full of great tidbits like this.

Dave Eggers' "Max at Sea" appeared in the August 24 issue of the New Yorker. The short story is adapted from Eggers new book The Wild Things. If you haven't heard of Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, then it is possible either you have not been living on this planet, or were perhaps sick with swine flu when the news got out. Either way, Eggers wrote the screenplay for the movie and was so taken by inspiration that he decided a book was in order.

The story was all right, so I may pass over the book. I think Zeitoun, his other recent publication, is going to make it to my reading list instead.

Books: I tried so hard to read a novel during my illness and simply could not sustain the effort. My mind then alighted on poetry as an option. I gave Rimbaud a shot, but his bizarre situations are no fun when you're feeling sick and bitter. I had wanted to see Bright Star, the movie about him and his relationship with Fanny Brawne, but the movie left theaters before I could feel better.

Movies: I only watched two movies when I was sick and they truly stood at the poles of my illness. I watched I've Loved You So Long right when I started to come down with the swine flu, but still didn't know that was what I had. The movie was good, but as I spent the weekend thinking about it I realized how cheesy it was. French movies where the actors are mostly silent are supposed to be the height of drama and seriousness, but in reality they are just at the other extreme of America's favorite dramatic technique - the shouting match. Neither is realistic. Nobody shouts such spectacular insults, but neither does anyone keep so silent, especially about a woman who committed a murder. It wasn't so much the silence as the ending, which I thought was a cop-out.

I fared no better with Before the Rain; this foreign choice a Macedonian one. Since I am originally from Macedonia I figured I'd see what my native land had to offer, but lucky for my fellow countrymen I will not be judging our filmmaking skills based on that movie. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1995, but the praise may be overdone.

The film is okay, and like I Loved You So Long, cheesiness creeps into certain parts. The story is told in three parts about the war that racked Yugoslavia in the 90s, and it follows a man who returns just as it is beginning to get worse. The characters were too easily drawn for my taste, but it was a nice effort to show the culpability of both sides, Macedonian and Albanian.

Well, sensational reporting and reviews - the best of both worlds. All in all swine flu was an experience I would not like to repeat. I could not read or watch anything for long periods of time.

The greatest amount of mental exertion I could muster for most of the illness was to trace patterns over my bed sheets and the wall while thinking.

However, it comes in very handy when you want to scare friends or enemies. Just mention that you had the swine flu and people jump back 10 feet - so for a time I was able to get to class faster. So, to the hypochondriacs, watch out - I may have touched the issue you are reading.