Swine Flu confirmed! Now what?

I'm sorry to have started this thread here in this forum, as I meant to start it in the Swine Flu section but the system will not allow. It is said that I need to have a minimum contribution of 20 posts before I can start new threads. So if any Admin can help move this to the Swine Flu forum I would really appreciate it.

Ok, here goes my story. Last night, on October 26th, 2009 my little brother (11) was confirmed with Swine Flu at the Whittier Hospital (SoCal). I believe the virus confirmed was called H1N1 Influenza A. Earlier Friday night, he started out with a cough and a sore throat which eventually lead to a high non-stop fever at night. I mean the fever went as high as 104 according to my mom. I believe we tried to give him two different kinds of fever reducer, Motrin and Tylenol but none of them works.

So, Sunday afternoon, we finally decided that his fever was getting out of hand so we took him to a near by emergency hospital. Well, this is where my story gets real interesting and humorous. After waiting for like 3 to 4 hours at the emergency hospital, (yeah you heard me right, about 4 hours of wait before you can even see a nurse or doctor) they took some bacteria samples from his nose and did a lab test. Another 2 hours or so gone by, came back with the confirmation of H1N1. What the nurses/doctors there did was mixing double dose of two different fever reducers to get his fever to drop. They also warned my mom at the hospital to never do this at home, mixing medications.

After another hour or so, they sent him home along with the miracle drug "TamiFlu" and some other crap. What I cannot figure out is, why on earth these folks at the hospital does not treat this seriously. Like, no instructions were given to us about quarantine, they only gave us breathe masks. They basically told my parents that this is very common now, like 9 out of 10 patient they get right now that have flu like symptoms are basically H1N1. The part that makes me pissed off and confused is their attitude or lack there of when dealing with a epidemic such as this. Basically, we were told to go home, wear masks, and hope for the best. Any individual that has contact with the patient during high fever is potentially infected (this means our whole family by the way).

So they had to write a note for my brother so he can skip school. On the doctors note, there was absolutely no mention of H1N1, I guess they're respecting our privacy? In any case, the MD's basically act like this isn't a big deal, everyone's getting it, so why are you freaked out? They're basically saying, "Well, it's not like you're gonna die from this, so why worry?" No quarantine measures needs to be taken because heck, everyone's getting it. This is where my mind blew up, because I just couldn't accept the fact that no one in this hospital seem to take this seriously, they're treating it just like another seasonal flu.

Here's my question, why is H1N1 being feared by so many people? Why is the media and government agencies generating so much fear in people by going with a Level 6 pandemic warning? Why force folks to get vaccines? Why are the vaccines even developed? I just can't get this around my head, maybe I'm just plain paranoid. From what the doctors at the hospital is saying, you can basically recover from this Flu within 5 days and the funny thing is TamiFlu isn't absolutely necessary. So.. why the panic? Why the hysteria? Why is media going frenzy with this if it's just another regular flu? Most important question of all, why is the vaccine or TamiFlu even needed if my body can recover from this crap by itself?

What does this tell me? If I get H1N1 from my little brother, I'm not getting the vaccine nor am I going to use TamiFlu. Basically, I made this decision based on the Doctors reaction at the hospital, which tells me, this isn't a serious thing. Either I'm crazy, or the Doctors just plain don't give a crap.

[edit on 10/26/2009 by truthseeker84]

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If the mods don't kill this thread, good for you!

Take 10-15 mins and get your 20 posts, read the ATS policies, this is a place to introduce yourself and learn a few ins/outs. Not to post subject matter.

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[edit on 26/10/2009 by Sauron]