h1n1 – miyagi.sg

What are you taking for your “flu” that won’t go away?

I went to the doctor’s yesterday for the sixth time in 2 months, and he doesn’t seem too concerned that I’ve made so many trips for the same problem. He thinks I’ve been infected by several different strains of flu, and quite possibly, with H1N1 as well.

I’ve been on three courses of an antibiotic called Klacid to try to treat a throat infection that produces green-yellow phlegm mixed with blood, but that obviously hasn’t worked that well, since I’m still getting these spasmodic coughing fits which are driving me insane.

The doctor said it was probably the same thing – seasonal flu, and explained away my concern that I (and Naomi) have been sick since December by saying that “flu season is from December to February”. And although he did not discount the possibility of my having a mycoplasma infection, he gave the usual drugs to ease the symptoms, and a new antibiotic to try to kill off the bug in my throat that’s making it itch so bad I cough till I think I bust a rib:

Have you had those (click on the links) drugs before? Have they worked? Are you still coughing?

We have a serious flu epidemic, and what’s with NEA spot checks that don’t include vacant premises?

I’m wondering a little why there isn’t more alarm over what must be a full blown flu epidemic. I’ll bet more than a million people have the flu, and many of them just haven’t seen a doctor about it yet. It must be really hard not to get the flu if you had to commute daily on an overcrowded bus or train.

So those tens of thousands they’ve counted at just the polyclinics? Tip of the flu iceberg. Naomi and I haven’t been well since mid-December, and Kai’s currently down with a bug as well. Several friends have also reported being sick all January, with the same deal: sore throat, cough, gets better, then nose goes haywire, post nasal drip causes another round of sore throat and cough. It’s never ending, and I swear I’ve been reinfected just waiting my turn in the two clinics I’ve alternated between these two months.

And who are these experts who say that “the flu strain has not become more severe since the pandemic in 2009”? Are they the same people who advocate checking for mosquito breeding by sending NEA agents door to door like they did this morning when Kai was sitting on his potty?

More than half of the units in my apartment block are vacant – deserted. And so when NEA mosquito agents come a-knocking and no one’s in, the empty apartments are automatically given a clean bill of health, I assume. I’ve asked the agents before: No one compels the owners to come and open up their premises for inspection. If you and your domestic helper aren’t home, you’re clear.

A neighbour in a landed property behind our condo has a disused swimming pool which appeared to be a cause for alarm last year when we contacted the NEA, who told us the house “belongs to two doctors, and they rear fish, and there are no mosquito larvae in the pool, we checked”.

I asked this morning’s NEA agent about the neighbour again, because they seemed to have pumped out most of the water from the pool, and from what I can see, there aren’t any fish any more, and all’s left is a stagnant pool of what’s probably rainwater. The NEA agent said, “Yeah, we know, they are two doctors. We checked before”.

So I asked, “Did you check again?”, prompting the answer, “Yeah, we check before”.

I didn’t have time to pursue the matter – Kai was getting antsy on his potty. There wasn’t any stagnant water in there either.

I’m sick of being sick, and it’s about time the authorities stopped saying it’s no big deal and get everyone to be slightly more alarmed about the situation. I have an almost two-year old toddler and we don’t want him to go through what he did with dengue or any other life-threatening communicable infection again.

Second month confinement

You’d think right after a month of recuperation and adhering to (some of the) traditional post-partum confinement rules, we’d be ready to go out and show Baby Kai off to the world.

H1N1 has put paid to that, and thankfully we had a small group of family and friends who came by and celebrated with us at my mother’s yesterday. We had a lot of food to celebrate with. We still have a lot of food to celebrate with. And it’s because some friends recused themselves from attending our little party because they’d been to flu-affected countries or they, understandably, couldn’t pry themselves away from the AWARE EGM which dragged into the night.

It was definitely not because people didn’t like the food. We had consulted with Loyal Reader Lincoln with regards to the food, and he arranged for us to get it from North Border. Best decision we’ve made (apart from getting the Ang Ku Kueh from Ji Xiang Everton Park).

If you’re planning some event – like a baby shower or full month party – give North Border a shot. They came and set up the food service, complete with labels so that people would know that crab cakes were crab cakes and stuffed jalapenos were stuffed jalapenos.

But of course, that didn’t stop a friend of ours from thinking the jalapenos were stuffed crab claws because of the similarity in shape (really?) and taking a bite into one mid-conversation, only for the extreme heat of the chili to completely derail her train of thought and run another express line through it, making her say “wow, this crab thing is quite… exciting”.

Some more, (American) Southwestern cuisine would be something different from your usual bee hoon spring roll siew mai har gao buffet catering, and honestly, having dined at North Border several times previously, you are not likely to go wrong with the food.

The only thing I’m sorry about is not having taken enough photographs on Saturday despite bringing two cameras out. So there aren’t any pictures of the food. You’ll just have to head down to 2 Rochester Park to have a look.

Probably the nicest touch to Saturday’s party was having Loyal Reader Lincoln, despite suffering from a crook wisdom tooth, playing ice-cream man with a huge carton of various flavours of ice-cream from Haato. Eat hot jalapeno, eat Haato, eat hot jalapeno, eat Haato. Now say that ten times quickly.

In all, everything was good enough to make everyone want to SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN and eat.