Mary's Family

photo: mary's family

My husband and I were going to my mother's house for lunch with my sister and niece who were visiting for the weekend. Before the family dinner, we drove to Moberly to see a cabin on Sugar Creek Lake. The realtor took us to see a cabin that was listed. When we walked in, I could smell the mold from a water leak. The price and the mold and the need for a new roof made us decide to wait on a decision. We went back to Columbia for lunch. By the time that we got to my mother’s house, I thought that my allergies were kicking in because I had a little cough and runny nose. Other than that, I felt fine. That evening, the cough and runny nose continued, but no other symptoms.

Sunday morning I woke up to aching muscles, running nose and cough and by mid- morning had a fever of 101. The symptoms proceeded to include headache and pain across my midsection which did not get any better with eating. I did not have diarrhea, but was a little nauseous. By mid-afternoon, my temperature was up to 102 and the muscles aches and headache were worse. The convenience clinic was closed for the day and I decided if the symptoms continued into Monday morning that I would see about getting a stat [rapid] flu test before deciding what to do about work.

Monday morning, my temperature was up to 102.8, and my cough and aches continued through the night along with the sore stomach. I went to the convenience clinic, which did not offer me a mask until I asked for it, and sat in a waiting room full of coughing people. My stat flu was negative, but the doctor told me that he knew that I had influenza and prescribed Tamiflu. I got the prescription filled and went home to take the Tamiflu twice a day. My muscle aches, headache and fever continued until Wednesday, the sore stomach was the last to go, lasting for over a week.

Sarah called and wanted to do a culture on me to see if I was the department's "agent zero" [first case in a select location]. She came over and I swabbed my own throat for the culture. She told me that the results would be in on Thursday, and that I should stay home until I was well. I watched Ice Road Truckers for an entire day in between naps, because the fatigue was considerable and the Tamiflu made me dizzy.

For some reason the state lab decided to run the test earlier and she called me on Tuesday to tell me that my test was positive. My husband was asymptomatic [had no symptoms] when I heard the culture results, but since we were scheduled to go to England in a week, our doctor put him and our daughter on Tamiflu prophylaxis [taking medication before getting sick to prevent the virus from infecting a person]. On Wednesday pm, my husband came down with the flu symptoms and subsequently had a positive flu culture. When he started having a fever, he switched his dosing from once a day to twice a day. His fever and other symptoms lasted for only two days. Our daughter, who had moved into her apartment before I got sick, but was at the family dinner, took the ten day prophylaxis and never got sick. Other family members at the dinner did not get sick. My niece, a pediatrician, notified the FQHC that she worked for of her exposure and was told to stay home for a week. She apparently did not have any troubling symptoms, since she took advantage of the time off and went to Chicago to the Lollapalooza festival with her husband.