Remember when the swine flu was a thing? It’s been quite a few years but it was a big problem when I was in 6th grade. I’m not sure where I caught it but it was most likely either church or school. The danger with a flu or even a cold goes up exponentially with my disability. Even the slightest illness can morph into a critical pneumonia. I have always been up to date on vaccination and boosters. The same can’t be said for the general population around me though.

I knew something was wrong a full 24 hours prior to my first physical symptoms. I have always been incredibly in tune with my body. I feel everything down to where the current progress of my digestion is located in my body. My going theory is that since my body never got to practice a lot of outward movement, my internal sensation sense increased proportionally. It was the afternoon before a school day and I just felt off. The best way I can describe it is on edge. I complained to my mom at the time about really feeling like I was coming down with something. I had the history of trying to get out of school on occasion by using illness as an excuse, because of what I later realized was anxiety, so I was not believed. It was a boy who cried wolf kind of situation. Mom took my vitals and when they were ok insisted I attend school the next day.

I made it to first period the next day before the situation began to go downhill. I was so very tired to the point that I couldn’t hold my head up straight. I also couldn’t focus on what my math teacher was teaching. My brain literally couldn’t track. He could have been teaching greek and I would have never realized. I asked my class aid if I could go to the nurse but she urged me to make it through the class period. I tried to wait. I really did. It was thanks to my teacher in the end that I got relief. He noticed my condition in the middle of teaching and said “Hey Nicole, do you need to go to the nurse? You look kind of pale.” When I made it to the nurse, it was found that I had a temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit and an elevated heart rate. I told my mom an immature “told you so” on the way to the hospital. Soon after I was transferred from the hospital with my GP doctor to the ICU of a bigger hospital by ambulance. My vitals had not improved and I had begun to show greatly decreased oxygen levels as well. This was the start of a total of nine days of medical torment.

I was to live in a bed in a long hall across from the nurses station. There were many other beds there too. Only curtains gave privacy from everyone else. TVs were mounted to the ceiling but mine didn’t work of course. I had to use the one a bed over if not occupied and one of the TVs on the side had inverted colors. The first evening I came down with chills. I was shaking and felt like my temperature was in the negative. Ik ended up pleading and begging for any kind kind of heat source. The nurses gave me heated blankets as long as I agreed to keep an ice pack in my crotch area to try and lower my core temperature. A few hours later and I was over the worst of the chills.

My mom had to leave early in the morning the next day because she got the swine flu as well. My father took her place. On day two near the end of the day he made the executive decision against my wishes to opt for a deep suctioning procedure for me to speed up healing. My right lung had collapsed in the bottom half due to the amount of fluid in my lungs from the swine flu. A flexible suction tube was forced down my nose and into my lungs without sedation or pain medicine. The first attempt wasn’t successful either cause I fought it and it got turned around in my throat. Instead it came out my mouth that time. In the end, both lungs were drained. I was given medicine to try and fight the flu as well as keep my temperature down. I remained on levels of oxygen throughout the stay as well. I got a nebulizer treatment and therapy vest treatment every few hours alternating. Even in the middle of the night I was woken up on purpose to receive treatment. I got my nutrition exclusively through IV and my feeding tube tube for a few days. It was only later when I could go sprints without full face supplemental oxygen that I could start eating meals.

I entertained myself with movies and my reasonably new to me DS lite. I was grateful because the hospital actually had a video game library. I played my first Zelda game, Phantom Hourglass, because of it. I had visitors too but overall the days blended together. It both felt like a short amount of time and an eternity. I was so happy when I was finally discharged. The value of a quiet and comfortable bed is always not fully evident until you no longer have it. It has been over a decade since this hospitalization but it remains one of the most challenging stays I’ve been through. My lungs have scarring from being sick as a kid so often but this illness is one of the largest reasons why. I hope that absolutely nobody reading this has had a similar experience.