Down with the (swine?) flu

DS2 woke up with a temperature on Sunday morning, and it had hit 39.5C by early evening and wasn't going down with Panadol and cold towels. So we dropped DS1 at my parent's house at 8:30pm and drove to the local hospital's emergency department. The car park was completely full and there were people wandering outside wearing face masks. I left DW and DS2 in the car while I went to check out how long the queues in the emergency department waiting room were (I've had to wait over six hours to see a doctor on previous occasions), but didn't go past the entry due to a large sign stating that anyone with a cough of temperature could not enter unless they were wearing a face mask. There weren't any masks available at the door, so I decided to drive home to either collect some face masks, go to a local 24-hour medical centre, or call the locum to make an after-hours house call.

The locum service advised that they were very busy and it would be at least four hours before a doctor could attend us. Since it was already after midnight I decided to wait until Monday morning and visit our GP instead. By this time DS2's temp had dropped slightly and he was sleeping.

This morning we made an appointment with our GP in the morning for 11:30am, and I took DS2 in for a check-up. His chest and ears were fine, and the doctor thought it more likely to be a gastric virus than swine flu. We were given a prescription for a course of Tamiflu for DS2 "just to be safe" (since it's from the government stockpile we didn't have to pay anything, other than the normal GP consultation fee), and DW and I should go back to the doctor tomorrow if we're feeling worse (we both have a slight cough and temperature, and DW has some aches and pains). I was having bad chills last night, but was feeling reasonably OK today (although the cough seems to have settled in my chest), so I suspect we may just have the normal "seasonal" flu rather than swine flu that is spreading around Sydney at the moment. I had a seasonal flu vaccination last month, which would explain why I'm not as sick as DW or DS2. DS1 is still feeling OK, so he's staying with my parent's for another night. Fortunately it's school holiday this week, so my parents had previously arranged to have him during the day anyhow.

Hopefully we'll all be feeling better tomorrow morning.

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