Rogan has Swine Flu. Probably

.
Thursday lunchtime we got a phone call from the high school saying my 14 year old son, Rogan, wasn't feeling well and to go and collect him. He certainly seemed a bit under the weather and an irritiating cough he's had for weeks took a definite turn for the worse.

Last night he slept really badly and spent most of today on the couch feeling miserable. By late this afternoon he was complaining of quite a bad headache and seemed to have a bit of a temperature.

Given the terrifying ordeal Attila the Mom has been going through as her son has been hospitalised over the past 2 weeks with swine flu, and the fact that 9 miles down the road, Kirkcudbright High School has had 1/3 of pupils off school because of it, we thought it time to call the doctor.

I was told to take Rogan up to the Health Centre, but not take him in until I had alerted the receptionist who would make sure an isolation room was set up for him to be seen in.

I wondered if I should start panicking, but thought I should at least wait until the doctor had seen him, just in case Rogan was over reacting and making a lot of fuss about nothing (something, I should say, he denies ever having done).

It seemed odd seeing the doctor wearing a plastic apron, rubber gloves and a face mask, but he didn't seem to be panicking.

Rogan's temperature was taken, chest was listened to and throat was peered down.

"It looks like he's probably got Swine Flu," said the doctor, "with secondary infections in the throat and chest." He said it all straight faced (as far as I could tell behind the mask) but he still didn't seem to be panicking.

I wasn't sure if I should start panicking now. I felt it would only be right if someone started panicking, but Rogan seemed quite calm about the whole thing too. In fact I thought I detected a slight air of "I told you so" smugness about him.

As the doctor typed into the computer then printed off a couple of prescriptions, I thought I should at least find out whether we should be locking ourselves in our house for a month and painting a red cross on the door.

"How long should we expect him to be off school?" I asked.

"Probably until the middle or end of next week, although if he gets any worse, give us a call."

This seemed a bit odd to me. I thought we would be given strict instructions to isolate ourselves, but apparently it's too late for that. According to the doctor it's so widespread that it would be a case of shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

Apparently 50% of people who have swine flu exhibit no symptoms whatsoever; about 5% will get hit hard by it and the rest are on a sliding scale in between. Despite the high publicity, deaths are still very rare.

The doctor did admit Rogan might not even have it, but he was showing enough of the symptoms to be given the drugs to combat it. The only real way of knowing for definite would be to have tests done, but by the time the results came back the damage would be done, so the official procedure is to play it safe.

So, we're home; Rogan has his various pills to take and an inhaler for when his breathing becomes difficult; and he's to keep drinking plenty of water.

And I'm still not sure if I should start panicking yet.

.