any survivors of the dreaded swine flu hanging in this forum

derry

I cant swear blind to you that I got the swine flu and survived but am fairly sure that I did get it in june 2009 while on holiday is Spain

First I caught a plane to Spain to Malaga and bought a bike and tent and started cycling south.After a few days suddenly I didnt feel so well and opted to stop at a cheaper camping site for a week as the weekly rate was better than the daily rate.Then the next day I got mega sick with sorta mix like a bad cold and a bad flu.

My plan to catch the Swine flu bug had maybe worked

I knew from the news that there was a lot of the swine flu in Spain but I also knew it wasnt likely to kill people in good health.Also I wasnt going to let some bug deter me from my holiday break which I booked in febuary and there was no insurance for the flight to cancell no go no money return or rebook policy

Also I figured the sooner you catch the darn swine flu virus the better before it mutates into something more lethal in a cold dark irish winter time

This made going to swine flu riddeen spain an even better idea if I could be lucky to catch the bug there

So I figured the chances to catch the bug are raised with flying in the plane to Spain .This is because they now only refresh the air every hour where as in the old days when there was smoking they had to refresh the air in the planes every 15 minutes .
This means that bugs all bugs can get more victims per flight in modern planes than on the old fashioned planes with smokers on them .
Then I figured go to all the likely spots where the bug was likley to be the crowded bars and discos full for peoples from everywhere all down the coast and with a bit of luck catch the bug the swine flu and recover from it


Once I got sick I rang the reception of the camping with my sapinsih mobile which only cost €20 with €20 credit enough for my holidays to inform them in case they had some quarintine policy
The main girl at reception was from germany who also talked fluent english and was also as it goes trained scientist in biology .She was able to confirm what the spanish governments health and quarintine policy was at that time.
Later I spent a lot of time chatting up that girl nice girl but she left for a better job in Barcellona with a property developer and more money as the job in the camping was filler in while in between work that paid more like prorpety sales
The quarintinne policy in Spain in June 2009 was the swine flu virus was now so rampant out control virus and so no specail quarintinne was advised or needed as the swine flu wasnt exactly a killer virus
That is now similar policy in ROI in that they no longer look to see the individual cases of swine flu are logged and dont opt for quarintine as the ROI also figures the darn virus spread is out of control in the ROI also

The latest info at that time there was there was no special risks for the swine flu to kill you if you were fairly healthy and for most cases just stay in bed and and take basic stuff like Disprin whatever and if things worsened get more mediacl help.

So I opted to do that got most my food like bread milk etc dropped to my tent from the camping sites shop and camped away from the main mob .I sweated it out for a week sometimes and sometimes went the beach and suntanned if I still felt cold and then recovered somewhat. The nose stayed very runny for every day and the other symptoms dropped down .Then after 10 days I felt the tinges of the lungs getting blocked up so opted to go the local spanish hospital with a note of the previous ten days written in spanish from the camping site .Having before had lung issues I knew the symtoms that something was going on in the lungs and that I might need a bit of mediccine to clear that type of problem.That is what makes the swine flu risky it can sometimes block the lungs up for some people and is a classic swine flu symtom

I went to A&E in this small town about the size of Rosslare and I presented my E11 medical card .I waited in there in the short queue for maybe 20 minutes .Then I went the doctor who read the note checked my vitals heart pulse check with stetoscope.They asked a few questions which strained my broken Spainish and were fairly happy from my reply.Then they gave me a prescription for the drugs penissilin for six days and sent me packing .

I went back the camping and after six days was recovered and then continued my cycling holiday for the rest of my one month stay in spain.Total time to be sick 15 days

Another german guy aged about 40 a trained nurse in the camp site had virtually exactly the same symtoms as me and he was sick also about 15 days .however he chose not to bother to go the doctor as he said as far as he was concerned it was the Swine Flu and that as he like me being fit and active as in daily he did wind surfing that our risk to die wasnt worth the hassle as the flu was rampant all over Spain .

So with a bit oif luck my holiday has immunised me from the swine flu virus and sure beats to be sick lying beside the beach sun tanning in the day time sometimes and surfing the net at night time with my computer.
I had with me in case I got bored my appple G3 notebook 12 inch screen and the camping had wifi thrown in at no extra cost so I could still write to boards from my deck chair if I was really bored.I think I wrote twice in the month to boards as a month in spain is along time not like a week holiday so I would check the boards sometimes once a week to se hat gives

I still got most of two weeks of my holiday as normal non sick holiday and some ten days pretty bad sick ands some 5 days recovering as in able to still cycle the local region for sight seeing .

All my research shows that the region of spain I went to was rampant in that time with the swine flu virus which is not suprising with half the world passing through on holidays and the symptoms are exatly what the swine flu is like.

Now all I need is a T shirt been there done that survived the swine flu:D

What will really piss me is if that was just some local bug which mimicks the swine flu and later I get the swine flu and have go through a similar experience in ROI where there isnt any sun shine . As that bug whatever it was was evil real evil you couldnt do anything at all for days barely even eat anything all I can hope is it was swine flu so as to save me from the return of the swine flu mark two version:eek:

Hopefully mission accomplished :pac: and hopefully when I nip back to Barcellona next month for the weekend the german girl will still be as friendly to me and I wont get stung in the winter with a pig flu virus

Derry