What alarmed me most was how little the doctors did to accurately diagnose what we had. My husband and I went to see a doc after almost a week of being sick. He had it much worse than me–with fever, aches, terrible cough, etc– I just had a terrible cough. Couldn’t get in to see our regular doctor, but another doc at same clinic saw us. When I asked if it was H1N1 we had she totally dismissed the idea. “We haven’t seen it in Markham at all,” she insisted. I thought she might take a swab to check, but no. I kind of felt like an alarmist for even asking.

A week later we went back to have our lungs checked by our regular doc. I felt pretty good, but my husband still had a horrible cough. I asked our doc, “so how exactly is it we know it wasn’t H1N1?” She looked surprised by my question. “It was H1N1–I’m quite sure of that.” To which we said, “What?!?!”

Now, since we’d been quite sick both my husband and I had mostly been working from home, but there were a few times between visit to doc #1 and visit to doc #2 that we did venture into work, take our kids to gymnastics, go grocery shopping, etc. If the first doc had not completely dismissed the idea we had H1N1 then I would have been much more likely to just stay home through it all.

But the thing that drives me crazy is that we really don’t know for sure. There was never a swab taken, no tests to diagnose what we had. Sure, my husband had a fever that kept popping up to 104F and felt worse than he has any of the times he’s had pneumonia, I only had a bad cough. The kids only had a mild cough. We think the whole family had H1N1, but we don’t know for sure.

Now that we’re recovering, the question on our minds has been whether or not we still need to get the vaccine. I’ve been searching around trying to find the answer to that without a lot of luck till yesterday. Apparently Canadian Public health is recommending we still get the vaccine even if we had H1N1 already. They say we already have some immunity, but the vaccine will boost our immunity to make it even less likely we’ll catch it again.

Hope you are feeling all better soon.

My stepdaughter burned her first fever Tuesday. No one could take her as a new patient (she just moved here in June) that day as they were really busy. Three hours at the night clinic and a doc took about 15 seconds to declare it strep throat (no swab).

Thursday my youngest had a fever. Luckily, she has a doc and they swabbed her and said no, not strep. Must be flu. Well, the stepdaughter wasn’t responding to the antibiotics, so the strep diagnosis was most likely wrong. Both girls ran a fever as soon as the Tylenol wears off for days.

Now Saturday, they are feeling a bit better. Their Daddy and I are sick now.

The medics here do not have any flu tests. They do not have any H1N1 vaccine. And I, being between 50 and 70 and having no insurance, wouldn’t qualify to get it even if it were available. Mr. Perfect got a seasonal flu shot because he has heart problems and Medicare.

I’m going to bed now. Wish me luck.

I am waiting and waiting for the H1N1shots to make it to my ped office. They got the mist 2 days ago, but with Jay’s immune system compromised, they can’t get it. They have to have a shot. Poor guys.

Get some rest…