Flu - Pig or Human?

I came down with flu at around week 27. Lovely! I woke up feeling kind of crappy on a Monday morning and thought I was maybe fighting a cold. I came home early from work and by that evening had deteriorated pretty rapidly. The next morning I woke up really sick, I was tired, feverish, achey and also had a bad tummy. I called my GP and they made me a phone appointment with the doctor later in the day because they didn't want me to come into the surgery in case it was swine flu, but recommended that in the meantime I call the National Pandemic Line for a diagnosis.

It was interesting because the Pandemic guys weren't sure, my symptoms were borderline and could have been swine flu but could also have been your run of the mill flu too. But they are pretty cautious with pregnant ladies so they prescribed me Relenza. It was like calling MI5! They had to give me a secret code for the prescription and told me very firmly "Please write this down and repeat it back to me, I can only give it to you once", to which I fought the urge to make a self-destruct joke. Then I was instructed to send my husband to pick it up from an agreed collection point, with his ID and mine. Wow!

Hubs was a little worried about me taking the Relenza. It's what they prescribe to pregnant women instead of Tamiflu as it is inhaled and supposedly safe as it doesn't cross the placenta, at least not in large amounts, but he was concerned about its safety as we really have no way of knowing. I ended up then calling the midwife on duty at the hospital to ask if they had any experience of this and any advice. She was very understanding about my concerns and said if I was that worried I shouldn't take the drug, but to make sure I spoke to my GP about it too because if it was swine flu and I let it go untreated the complications from that can be a much higher risk than the drug. I then talked to the GP who was also very understanding and agreed that I could wait. The main symptom to watch is fever and she said if the fever doesn't get worse in the next day or so then it's either a regular flu or a mild case of swine flu, and even being pregnant I am probably healthy and strong enough to fight it off with enough rest and fluids for at least a week. However, if my fever got worse I should definitely take the Relenza.

It was a happy ending. I didn't get any worse. I stayed home for 10 days and got tons of rest and fluids. The only thing I was suffering from at the end of that was cabin fever!