Swine Time

Here we are at the beginning of week #5. The past 4 weeks have been a flash and an eternity at the same time. The longer we're here, the more I am encouraged that I've stuck it out as long as I have, and I feel like I can do it. On the other hand, it DOES seem like it's been a long time, and I start to wonder how I'll make it through 11 times what I've been through already. But Wes is such a good supporter, so don't worry - he's keeping me together! And don't worry, I'm not really as jaded as this paragraph is making me sound. I'm just reflecting as I go.

So, I think it actually happened...I think we caught the flu. I got my flu shot on Wednesday (Oct. 28), but it was too little too late - I saw about 3 patients last Sunday and Monday (Oct. 25 and 26) who I thought might have strep throat, or a bad cold. This was before we knew there was any H1N1 in the community...so I wasn't wearing a mask. Turns out, the people I saw actually had the flu. So Friday (Oct. 30) I started developing the classic symptoms - cough, fever, headache/muscle aches, stuffy nose, sore throat...I pretty much covered them all! Working 12 hour days this past Saturday and Sunday probably didn't help my recovery much, so I'm still a little tired and weak. But unfortunately, as I'm on a slow mend, Wes has gotten pretty sick too. He doesn't think it's the flu, but considering both of our symptoms fit the definition, AND I know I've been exposed to people with it, I'm almost positive that we can officially say we got the dreaded H1N1. Thankfully we'll be ok though! All the cases we've seen up here have been pretty mild, so I'm sure we'll both be back to normal in no time.

The snow that we got about a week and a half ago melted completely. Hooray!! We had another little ground covering this morning, but it's gone too. Overall it's actually been fairly mild here the past couple of days. I think it got up to about +9 Celcius on Saturday. We have a thermometer that I'm looking at right now...it's 10:48 p.m. and +1.3 C. Not too shabby for November 2nd, and not too much different than it is at home, right? I'm sure we'll start seeing the difference sooner than we'd like, but I'll take all the "warm" weather I can get! :)

So I was thinking, I bet the Christmas decorations/merchandise have started to come out (hopefully still in SMALL quantities!) in the stores. I think I will miss that this year! Well, I'm finding that I'm missing a lot of what's going on in the "mainstream". It's amazing how big an impact surroundings and social interractions have on my mood/feelings/outlook, and how much I took for granted at home. I knew I would learn a lot about myself and about all of this during my time here, but it's still interesting to actually sit and think about it.

I know everyone is curious about the things I'm seeing in the clinic, and I promise that will be my next posting! For now, I think it's bedtime again. Ciao, for now!