Even though I’m not a doctor, I play one when I go online. I surf the web and diagnose myself with any illness I think I might have. I’ve had ovarian cancer, IBS, hiatal hernias, and PID—all in my mind.

But after three days of a fever of 101 I realized that I had more than a bad cold.  I logged onto the CDC and compared my symptoms to H1N1: Fever. Check. Respiratory Cough. Aches. Chills. Check. Check. Check. The next day, I was at my doctor’s office and she was writing me a script for a Tamiflu and Codeine cough syrup.

With my scripts in one hand and my cell in the other I speed dialed Dr. Sirna, my kid’s pediatrician from the foyer of my doctor’s office because Dashiell, my youngest, has asthma. The receptionist told me she’d have him call me right back. I turned the volume up on my iPhone and told Dashiell he could not play Frogger on my phone anymore so I would be sure to get his call. I even brought the phone into the bathroom with me. I kept checking that the ringer was on as if had some Flu-OCD and it reminded me of when I was a staff writer for SELF, and I’d be waiting to do a celebrity phone interview.

Celebs prefer to call you because they don’t want you to have their number and they rarely call on time so I’d be stuck at my desk trying to occupy myself for anywhere for five to fifty minutes—but I’d really just be glancing at the phone, pretending to write another story.  The only person who called me on time, actually a few minutes early, was Jody Foster. I had to be called out of meeting to take her call. Hearing “Jody Foster is on the phone for you” is a love-your-life kind of moment.

But when you have the flu and your kid has asthma during a possible H1N1 outbreak getting a call from your kid’s pediatrician feels even more reassuring. It also doesn’t hurt that Dr. Sirna is a Jason Bateman look alike.

I told Dr. Sirna that I had the flu but I didn’t know what kind, he said, “If your doctor diagnosed you with the flu and gave you a script for Tamiflu, you have H1N1 because seasonal flu has not started yet.” He also told me that the H1N1 is not behaving in the way they expected, its much more mild.

Well not mine.

My body ached in weird places like behind my groin, knees, elbows, ankles and my neck. It started like a pinching sensation, the kind of pinch my older brother would give me on my arm that would grow into a raw ache after he let go. Only this time it was as if all my skin was bunched up into some giant’s grip and he was holding on for good. I popped a lot of Tylenol to make it stop, first two, then two hours later when the pain still clung to my joints, three more—aconfession that alarmed Dr. Mohan.

Ironically, I wrote “Colds and Flu, Not You” for the October issue of Parenting. Now that I’ve got H1N1, I realize there’s a lot of good of information about how to deal if you get sick physically, but no one is talking about the stigma of having H1N1. Friends reactions can be unpredictable as the virus itself. A friend who had it this summer told me that people would see her and cross the street to get away from her. A friend pushed her away from her and one of her friends had such a swine-flu phobia that she was afraid to call her on the phone.

I showed up on the playground this morning at drop off on Tamiflu, feverless and officially un-contagious. My friends greeted me warmly, but at a distance. They had just found out that I was sick yesterday when I bumped into a friend at the doctor’s office. He was there for a routine check up, but I wasn’t. I thought “I’m busted!” when I looked up from reading Allure. Within minutes friends started texting me messages saying they were sorry to hear I was sick, I wasn’t planning on keeping it a secret and since I’d been in hiding all week their texts were very comforting, but I still wasn’t sure I wanted to tell them it was H1N1 on Halloween weekend.

On the playground one friend kept a tissue in front of her face the whole time we chatted. I finally asked is that tissue for your nose or me? She laughed and said her nose. But I would understand if it was a little bit of both. Tonight other friends are hosting a Halloween Happy Hour. Costumes required for kids and grown ups. They’ve hung Spanish moss from the chandeliers and changed all the white light bulbs to purple–they have a fog machine, cocktails in beakers with dry ice. I feel like I’m missing some Goth prom.

I joked that I would go to the party tonight as H1N1 with a mask but another friend, who was once an ER nurse, gently turned to me and said, “You know everyone would be really uncomfortable if you came to the party tonight.”

I love her for being both honest how kindly she said it. The truth is I can’t go to a party, I can barely go to the drugstore. But that’s when I realized that people may cross the street when the see me now.

Then I came home and a friend had sent me a message on facebook saying that Conrad had told everyone in the class he had swine flu. I sent her a hasty reply: “No its me who has it. But I’m on the mend.” Then I wondered if all the parents in the class thought he had it and I asked her if I should send the class parents and email. She wrote back and suggested I should in order to “still the rumblings of the grapevine…”

I did. Then I called the school nurse. And the whole time I felt very weird, maybe it was the meds, but something felt uncomfortable. And I realized, the whole “stigma” thing is too upsetting. I’m not saying that it’s not serious—its a bad flu. But if you ge it, you’ll be a lot happier in your feverish throbbing state if you treat yourself to a little lesson in:

H1N1 PR
How to tell your friends to NOT be afraid, NOT to be very afraid if you have the swine flu virus

1. If you get it tell them so they can be there when you actually need them.

My friends were all surprised and sorry I didn’t call to tell them sooner. I was sorry too because I was alone with two kids while David was in San Francisco on a business trip. But I so afraid of being the vector for an epidemic, I kept to myself. They insisted it would have been better if they had known because they could have left me chicken soup outside. (One friend had just made a huge pot and served it to a bunch of healthy people, what a waste!). But more important, knowing earlier would have given them time to adjust to the idea, which is all any friend needs when you have news, good or bad.

2. If you get it, tell friends right away—just don’t tell them in person.

My problem was that my friends found out on Thursday and I showed up on the playground Friday morning. It was too soon. They needed me to still have my resting, get better and emerge three days later phase, but I had had that without them. We weren’t on the same page. I wanted to be out. They needed me to be in. It was uncomfortable for everyone.

3. Your kid is your swine flu mole. Talk to his teacher right away.

Conrad has been afraid of Swine Flu ever since the story has been in heavy rotation on NPR. I sent an email to his teacher, but then worried I was making a big deal. Two minutes ago, I just got an email from her thanking me for my candor. In hindsight I realized I should have waited to hear from her and asked her how she thought the school and the school nurse would want me to deal with it. Which leads me to:

4. Ask your school nurse how she’d like it to be handled before your kid gets sick.

When I called the nurse and told her about the email she was very nice but I suspect she would have preferred I had called her before I sent out an email.  School nurses have been charged with being the virus watchdogs and I owed it to her. Also I have so much respect for our school nurse, and any school nurse. Seriously I think the best reality show would be a school nurse reality show, especially now.

5. If you really don’t want your friends to be afraid, wear makeup.

I look like crap. Today, if I really wanted to reassure them I should have put on a little blush. My mother and any PR executive worth their launch-event goody bag would have told me that. I’m breaking out my Laura Mercier as we speak in case I bump into our new neighbors with the six-month old baby because I have to go walk to the dog.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Life changing products, Random acts of mothering, Tips to try and share with friends, who knew!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.