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H1N1 - Panicking about the pandemic

A nurse wears a mask while examining patients with flu-like symptoms
photo: http://todaysfacilitymanager.com

It began with a slight tickle in my throat and some coughing on Saturday night. Then, Sunday morning I was awakened by a loud, choppy humming.

“What is that sound?” I think, before realizing it was coming from my chest.

It was the sound of my laboured breathing, and it wasn’t alone. It brought along with it a fever of 101 F, chest pains, dizziness, an uncontrollable cough and a terrible headache.

If you’re anything like me, though, you hate hospitals and will do anything to avoid them. I try my best to knock it out by taking a cocktail of Aleve, Advil Cold & Sinus, Buckley’s and herbal teas.

After several hours of coming in and out of consciousness and with the sickness worsening, I begin to worry that perhaps I’m stricken with the dreaded H1N1 virus.

So I take to the internet to find out more about the flu that has been the cause of so much worry, and begin going through a list of H1N1 symptoms.

  • Fever of over 100 degrees - check
  • Sore throat - check
  • Cough - check
  • Chills and fatigue - check
  • Body aches - check
  • Headache - check

Uh oh. Now I’m really worried…and I’m not the worrying type.

I begin calling hospital emergency rooms in the area to get an estimate of wait times because, like I said, I hate hospitals and I want to spend as little time at them as possible.

The first call is to Concordia Hospital. A woman answers and I ask what the approximate wait time is.

“Hours,” she answers. Then, without saying another word, click.

After checking some more wait times, I decide to go to Seven Oaks General Hospital. I walk through the sliding doors of the ER at 8:30 p.m. to find a dimly-lit, beige-walled waiting room filled with about 30 people.

I walk to the triage nurse’s desk and after answering only a couple of questions, I’m given a mask with loops to go around my ears. I answer the rest of the questions with the mask on, my words muffled.

I go to sit in the waiting room and I survey the morose faces of the people in the room, half of them also masked, and those that aren’t masked are noticeably distancing themselves from those that are.

I find a spot to sit and every once in a while I catch someone looking at me or someone else in a mask with a look that I’ve never seen before, a look probably familiar only to lepers.

After two hours of waiting, I walk back up to the triage nurse to ask how this feared pandemic has affected the wait time in the emergency room.

“I don’t have any exact numbers or anything, but it has clearly been busier in here over the last month,” says Mano Sengkhankham, the nurse on duty. “I’d say probably half of the patients coming in have been experiencing flu-like symptoms.”

Finally at 11:30, three hours after entering the ER, my name is called. I’m so excited to get in to see the doctor that I nearly forget just how bad I feel and jump out of my chair. It feels like I had just won the lottery, as I’m finally able to escape the depressing coughing and wheezing sounds of the waiting room

I wait another 20 minutes until the doctor finally arrives, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt as though he was interrupted while painting his house to come to the hospital.

After asking some probing questions, listening to my breathing and checking out my tonsils, Dr. Frank Barmeier comes to the conclusion that what I have is indeed a virus, but it’s doubtful that it’s H1N1.

I'm given two options: get a Tamiflu prescription or tough it out and just let my immune system fight it naturally. I choose the latter, hoping that it may strengthen my immune system in the long run.

The feelings of worry that I began the day with are replaced by the feeling that I just wasted the last three-plus hours of my life waiting to be told that I just need to go home and continue resting.

“You know, you’re not the only one who’s come in worried about H1N1,” says Dr. Barmeier while his cold stethoscope presses against my chest.

“There are so many viruses going around right now, and with all the worry of H1N1, many people are seeking help in the ER.”

Barmeier says that, although wait times may be long, anyone feeling flu-like symptoms should seek medical attention.

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