This week, news of a wave of “super flu” sweeping London was everywhere. A new, ‘drifted’ strain of the influenza virus has snuck past people’s previous immunity, turbocharged by the cold winter months that bring the usual uptick in cases. NHS chiefs are begging Londoners to get vaccinated and urging people to “stay home” if they had symptoms.
For once, I wasn’t on top of the news cycle. Because I was in bed, trying to sleep off a mystery illness that had rapidly taken out my household of two.
The first sign something was amiss came the weekend prior. Scrolling my phone on the bus on the way to a night out, I noticed the London Ambulance Service had raised the alarm they were receiving a level of 999 calls on par with a typical New Years Eve. Interesting, I thought, I wonder if there’s something going round. Then I closed my phone and spent the night in a basement club breathing in everyone’s sweat.
In hindsight, this was the classic opening scene from a zombie horror film. I was blissfully unaware that I would soon become a member of the shambling infected.
The second omen was when my boyfriend had to cancel on our standing Monday night dinner plans with our friends. He said he had a terrible headache but, uncaring girlfriend that I am, I thought he might still be feeling the after-effects of our weekend carousing. But when I got home, he was deathly pale in way I’d never seen him before.
By Tuesday morning, he was a sweating and shivering heap wrapped in a duvet on the sofa, racked by full body aches and a cough. This was concerning; I’d never seen him so poorly. I left him to take work calls from his sick bed (with some paracetamol and ibuprofen packets, I’m not a monster) and went in to the office.
Usually, my crappy immune system and janky respiratory system means I’m the canary in the seasonal cold coalmine. So I was feeling pretty smug about dodging what I assumed was a severe case of the sniffles. We’d both had our annual flu jabs weeks ago — I get mine free on the NHS for my asthma, and he’s a good upstanding citizen whose employer covers the cost (around £20 per vaccine).
But by Wednesday evening, something was off. I was beyond tired, when all I’d done that day was watch and write endless pieces Meghan Markle’s holiday special. I couldn’t blame my foggy brain (entirely) on her deranged broccoli wreath arrangement. We’d booked Thursday off to take family to and exhibition and a lunch in town, but the boyfriend was still so unwell we decided we should rain check.
As the still-less-sickly one of the household, I stocked up on soup ingredients and went on a mission to secure Covid tests. Do you know how hard they are to find these days? Supermarkets don’t stock them — and staff look baffled when you ask if they do — and the local pharmacist had to dig out their last remaining tests out of a dusty corner.
All that faff and we were both testing negative. Having never actually had the flu before, I was confused. It wasn’t a cold. It’s wasn’t coronavirus. Maybe I had just been struck down by sudden onset laziness? I’d decided to still take Thursday as annual leave and catch up on life admin, read a book, have a bath perhaps. Instead I slept for 15 hours straight.
Now I was the one unable to regulate my body temperature, with strange aches from my head to my ankles. Still, I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. I decided I was perfectly fine to work from home as usual on a Friday, just propped up in bed with my laptop instead of at the kitchen table. Mainline Lemsip and get on with it! Never mind that whenever I sat up I would be overtaken by strange vertigo.
In hindsight, this was another idiotic move. My far more sensible partner had wisely called in sick and was asleep on the sofa, again. When I turned my laptop off for the end of the week, another wave of fatigue hit like a freight train and I simply put the computer down, pulled up the covers and slept (sweatily, with intense fever dreams). My step count for that day was probably in negative numbers.
By Saturday, boyfriend was on the mend but I was still a slug, begrudgingly forced to accept I was indeed ill. I’m ashamed to admit that, prior to the pandemic, I would just push through illness to make commitments. But now we all should have learned to become hyper-vigilant about spreading a nasty virus. So we cancelled all our gorgeous Christmassy plans with friends and stayed home with takeaway and animated films featuring cute animals.
Sunday was a false spring. I felt alive! I baked! I folded laundry! My partner was winded by a walk around the park, but I didn’t heed the warning signs. Come Monday, I was once again a sleepy, sweaty mess confined to bed and, horror, actually having to call in sick. It wasn’t until mid-week that I finally felt in any way normal again.
So, what have I learned from my brush with the “super flu”?
Most importantly: get vaccinated. Seriously. It’s either free or the price of a round at the pub,. You might feel a bit sore or crummy for the next few days. But, had we not had the jab, I shudder to think how sick we could have become. Even with a mild case we lost a week to feeling awful. But it meant we were able to treat ourselves at home rather than put extra pressure on the currently overwhelmed hospitals.
Secondly, learn the symptoms. Flu sometimes presents with a cough, but I didn’t get one. Suddenly feeling ‘wiped out’, muscle aches, exhaustion and fever were all classic signs I initially wrote off because I didn’t have respiratory symptoms. The dizziness was also a symptom — the virus can cause inner ear inflammation, making the room spin when you sit up or simply turn over in bed.
Thirdly: rest, rest, rest. Sleep as much as you can and don’t over exert yourself. I realise this is a privilege not afforded to parents and those with caring responsibilities, but rest really is key to getting better as soon as possible. And make sure you drink lots of water, because the fever will get you all dehydrated.
Finally, don’t spread it round. I co-sign the NHS warnings to stay home and off public transport if you have symptoms, although honestly leaving the house wasn’t an option when we were in the throes of it. If you can find a covid test then it’s best to take one, for peace of mind at least, but it may well be negative. This doesn’t mean you’re not ill.
While deeply unpleasant, I’m grateful to have survived the wave relatively unscathed (although I’m still occasionally dizzy and tire easily). It’s miserable missing out on things during the festive period, so get your jab now and you’ll be immune in time for Christmas.
