The past few days have seen me with a little more time on my hands than usual. Part of that could be due to the fact the Winter Solstice has passed, and the days are getting longer, or that I am becoming more organised and just getting more stuff done faster, or it could be due to the fact I am in quarantine due to a suspected case of Swine Influenza... and seeing as though I couldn't tell the difference in the length of day since the Solstice, and am OBVIOUSLY not getting more organised and getting stuff done, it is simply ALL down to pig sneeze disease. Oh Goodie.

So what is it like? Well, firstly, it isn't confirmed yet, and secondly I have the urge to roll in mud a lot more and like to eat left over rotting scraps. OK, maybe not quite, but normally when I have the flu, I get either a bad chest, some muscular aches and a runny nose. Or some chills and fevers, aches and a cough. Or a headache and runny nose and obscenely tired. The point is, I only have ever had a couple of symptoms at once. This time I have had everything at once. Chills, fevers, coughs, ear-aches, sore throat, aching glands in my neck and back of my tongue, chest infections, headaches, eye-aches (it hurts to move my eyes side to side), muscular aches, runny nose, lack of energy, upset stomach. It is like my body just decided it had enough. The worst part of all of this was the fact that the flu hit my lungs pretty badly, so my lungs fill up with mucus which I can't cough up properly.

Unfortunately, as an asthmatic who has made more than their fair share of trips to hospital as a kid, I am more prone to lung conditions than others. So I get a cold, and can't breathe. Fortunately, as an asthmatic I have a crap load of strong medicines and machines at my disposal to keep me going. For instance, take a look at my picture. Here I am doing my best impersonation of "Maverick" from "Top Gun" crossed with "Will Dance" from the upcoming movie "Will Dance was a retard who started the fire in the lounge room and INHALED TOO MUCH SMOKE and thus started choking and tumbled downstairs to his nebulizer.".

Asthma + Swine Flu + Smoke Inhalation = plenty of time on Nebulizer + new LOS post.

So I got tested today for Swine Flu. Some nurse swabbed me. Now when I think of swabbing, I think of gentle dabbing of a cotton bud on a soft surface. I'd always imagined it to be like giving your grandmother a sponge-bath, slightly awkward, but gentle none the less. How wrong I was, I was on a path to trauma of the worst kind. I would have been less traumatised if while sponge-bathing grandma, grandpa got all frisky and climbed into the tub with her...

There were two swab tests, a throat swab test, and a nasal swab test. I had thought that a throat swab test involved me sticking out my tongue, the nurse swabbing it, and we both live happily ever after and have successful and fulfilling careers. Um, no. Not in a million years. Nurses have a way of underselling everything, and this evil one was no different. She starts by saying "this could be quite uncomfortable", before pulling out a 15cm long swab, pinning my tongue down with a depressor, and then jamming the swab so far down my throat that I start gagging... a lot. Only, she missed the first time and had to do it again. Not only did I nearly throw up, it also really hurt! I don't care what any of you say, I am not used to having things jammed down my throat.

Satan's nurse put the little throat swab away, then turned to me and said "now unfortunately we have to do two nasal swabs - and they are a little more uncomfortable than the throat swabs". You. Are. Freaking. Kidding. Me. Unfortunately she wasn't. She tipped my head back, and slid the swab up my nose until it hit something solid and painful. Then she pushed hard and scraped it around in little circles. It felt like she was burning the underside of my brain. In fact if you were to cut me up, you would find little swab shaped depressions on my temporal lobe. On the second attempt I could feel it pushing the back of my right eye socket. I'm pretty sure my eye nearly dropped out onto the floor.

After being tortured and violated, she didn't even offer me a hug afterwards. So, eyes watering I went back out into the real world and coughed on as many people as I could manage. Just kidding. Sort of. So as I sit here, isolated from the world, misty eyed (from the nebulizer), and all light headed (from the drugs), I leave you all with two warnings.

Firstly, stay away from coughing people.

Secondly, don't laugh at people with Swine Flu. We may have little tails, but don't think we haven't been through your cutlery drawer and licked all your utensils.