Happy swine flu to you

I was awake in the middle of the night, trying to drain my respiratory passages so I could lie back down and sleep, so I was reading the German news on line. A Gymnasium (university-track high school) in Nurnberg cancelled an exchange with a Turkish Gymnasium because there was a single reported case of swine flu at the Turkish school. I think it's a good idea they did this; however, it's only a matter of time before swine flu comes to Nurnberg. Seriously. Last spring it sounded like a disease as dread and distant as ebola here, and now, it is so rampant that the university health center has stopped running tests for it, and all the news outlets that I see say that if you have the flu, you have swine flu, because it's just not the right time of year for the seasonal flu to be active. They are apparently only doing the tests on people who are so ill they have to be hospitalized with life-threatening cases. But my kids definitely have some kind of flu (and I have elements of it, too, although like I said, it seems to be a lighter case for me), so I can only assume it's the swinish type. The school is trying to track this and report it, so every day when I call in they want to know if my kids have had an official diagnosis. I haven't taken the oldest two to the doctor because it seems pointless. They aren't blue with lack of oxygen, and all he said for the other two (who had identical symptoms) was to give them Tylenol and let them rest. And I don't know if I'm up to um...bringing four kids to the doctor while I am sick too? Who knows what other surprise germs we could pick up. If the diagnosis is Tylenol and rest, it seems counterproductive to drag everyone in. Of course, if things worsen for anyone, we'll take appropriate medical measures. Meanwhile, DH is supposed to report to his department secretary every day if he or anyone in his household has flu symptoms. EVERYONE has flu symptoms! It just seems a bit like a tissue in a flood...

If you have a chance to get vaccinated, I'd recommend it, and also, there seem to be different configurations of symptoms. Headache, fever, sore throat and cough are the classic (and icky) ones, but it appears that some people are getting it without a fever. Son 2 I think had it, but he had no fever, so I didn't realize it at the time. He just slept all day for 3-4 days and had as stuffy nose. Lucky kid.

I guess the benefit of all of this is that nobody will actually need this vaccination by the time they start offering it here, because everyone will have already had it. Fun times.

I think I'll go read some historical fiction about 1918 now...

In lieu of anything interesting here...

...check out my sister-in-law's blog. She is amazing. If you do any kind of crafts (and even if you don't), you'll enjoy looking at this.

I had a quiet book as a kid, but this is a whole house.