Swine flu and its illusive nature

I sit here well and perfectly healthy which is a sickening feeling.

This weekend was going to be the weekend I got swine flu. I had pencilled it in to my diary, which was looking enticingly empty. There were no holidays, no weddings and no music festivals, nothing major to look forward to and the sort of weekend that would be perfect for excusing myself, cocooned in the house for a couple of days.

I had done all the right things. I had deliberately gone against every piece of advice out there. I had tried to remember to wash my hands infrequently. On a couple of occasions I had pounced for the soap, but just in time, managed to avoid the risk of killing off any of those ever-so-friendly germs. I had touched my face often, which left some looking at me rather strangely. I had sought out people that looked as if they might have been coming down with something. I sat next to someone on the train, who looked very tired, the fact that they were an attractive young female was just by the way. I went and stood next to the guy I walk past every day who stands on street corners and sneezes very loudly (although it turned out that what I thought was “Achu” was actually an unnecessarily elaborate form of “Big Issue” and I felt bound to “cough up” a few pence, so to speak). I had stockpiled strepsils, lemsip and paracetemol, all to no avail.

Too late, I stumbled across the idea of organising ‘flu parties’, well someone else’s idea actually, but it was a good one. Find someone that has swine flu, ask to come round, and bingo! Doctor’s orders, number 9!

If you think I am not taking this potentially deadly disease seriously enough, there is a method to my madness. According to some made-up figures, 30% of the population will catch swine-flu. For a male in his twenties, that percentage is much higher, due to lower immunity and a more active social life. On that basis, I am likely to catch it at some stage, but kind of hoping that I would fall into the 82% of the population with mild symptoms. Therefore, this weekend would have been ideal, not causing me any personal inconvenience, while getting the virus before it decides to mutate.

…This is of course all under the assumption that if and when swine-flu migrates to another form, you cannot catch it twice. It turns out you can.

Forget all that.