Adam vs. the Plague, Round 1

"Can I help you?" the heavy-set woman asked me as I stepped through the door.

"I need to get in and see a doctor," I replied.

"And I think I need a mask."

***

Yesterday I woke up with a wracking cough and a headache. "No worries," I thought, "I don't have a fever. It's just a cold. I'll be ok." Then I spent the whole day sitting at my desk, coughing and grading papers for my Biology 101 class, and getting progressively dizzier and more sore through my back and shoulders. And then, when I made it home, I popped in the thermometer I picked up at Walgreen's on the way back and tried not to think about the parallels between someone nervously watching a pregnancy test change. Then I got the good news: 100 degrees. Fever plus cough equals flu.

Awesome.

The next day I spent watching an entire season of the Venture Brothers before trying to drive to the University Health Center. This was not a good idea (the driving, that is, not watching the Ventures.) In my own defense, I only made three wrong turns on the way there, and I think that only maybe two of them were because I was delirious and dizzy.

After I finally got there, I was given my breath mask and asked politely to go sit in a secondary waiting room, away from the entrance, with the other coughing fever patients. The words "quarantine zone" entered my mind, unbidden.

"It's kind of scary when they walk in, and they already know they need the mask," the lady at the front said.

Ahead of me, a girl felt she needed to pop out and say that she didn't really need hers, she just didn't like being in a room full of sick people.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that they're only good for stopping us from spreading the virus, not to protect somebody from getting it.

Finally I was taken to the back, where a polite doctor asked "What can I help you with?" I told her I probably had the flu, rattling off the symptoms, likely in the order that they ask for in the CDC guidelines. I told her the only one I was missing was the sore throat. "You will soon enough," she joked.

Turns out the health center has pre-packaged home flu care kits, including throat lozenges, ibuprofin, a single use thermometer, some tissue, and spray hand sanitizer. As it looked like the appointment was wrapping up, I said "Do I get some Tamiflu or something like that?" No. I turns out the health center isn't giving it to anybody unless they have a complicating disease or extreme symptoms. So, consequently I drove across town for nothing. No tamiflu. A diagnosis that I already knew. And they even told me that I couldn't take my NyQuil with Ibuprofin.

You win this round, H1N1.