'I was begging for the symptoms to pass...': In graphic detail, one sufferer’s account of swine flu

By Anastasia Stephens
Last updated at 12:55 AM on 19th July 2009

Anastasia Stephens believes she suffered swine flu

I can understand how swine flu can be deadly. A month ago I came down suddenly with an illness that floored me so severely it had me in tears and begging for the symptoms to pass.

With the Government warning of a pandemic of frightening proportions - we may be seeing 100,000 new cases of swine flu every day and up to 65,000 fatalities this winter - I sincerely hope there’s enough of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu for those who need it.

I am a fit and healthy 37-year-old journalist. I play tennis, attend yoga classes and enjoy hiking. Had I been weakened by a medical condition or was elderly, the illness which I now believe was swine flu could have easily been left me fighting for my life.

Looking back, I think I may have caught the virus travelling on a crowded Tube train to the Barbican in Central London. The carriage was warm and humid, creating the perfect environment for something like swine flu to spread.

Yet when I fell ill, it was sudden and I didn’t know the cause. It had been almost two months since the first swine flu cases had been diagnosed in Britain. I wasn’t worried about catching it - after all it hadn’t reached anything like the epidemic proportions of the past week.

Now I am certain that the illness I suffered was swine flu. A phone call to my doctor and checks against the NHS’s swine flu symptom list confirmed it.

The illness struck while I was camping in Dorset. I had gone away with friends for a weekend of walking and climbing near Swanage. The sun was shining and I felt excited about what should have been a glorious few days. So when, on the Saturday night, I came down with a sore throat and streaming nose, I resolved to battle through it.

Only I couldn’t. Within an hour of waking up the next day, I felt certain that this would be more than just a common cold. Waiting for the morning tea to brew, my throat felt absolutely raw, I was coughing and I felt drained of my usual energy.

Instinct told me to rest. Not wanting to inconvenience my friends, I told them not to worry about me and they should go walking while I lay under some blankets in a rocky shelter.

My tendency is to put on a brave face. So for a few hours I tried to convince myself I was better than I really was. But I barely had the energy or the will to move.

By lunchtime, my temperature had reached feverish levels. I know from experience that when you are really ill, you’re barely aware of what’s going on outside. The sea was sparkling in the distance and I could hear seagulls caw in the breeze, yet I hardly noticed or cared. My appetite was non-existent and I felt nauseous. All my attention was on my body, which was now sweaty and aching. 

Throughout the afternoon, the nausea got gradually worse. It got to a point where I was lying almost motionless because I worried any movement would make me feel sicker.

I made myself sip some water because I knew I should not become dehydrated, even though drinking was the last thing I wanted to do.

At around 5pm, my friends returned. Seeing the state I was in, they felt terrible for having left me. They carried my bags while we walked slowly to the car. I remember longing for the three-hour journey back to London to be over quickly so I could get home to bed.

However, just ten minutes into the journey, my nausea reached a peak and I was violently sick at the roadside. I wanted to cry.

For the next few hours, I sat in the car battling the urge to vomit again. Thank goodness I fell into a slumber.

That night while lying in bed the nausea and aching felt so hideous that I couldn’t help but groan out loud. Twice during the night, I was forced to run to the bathroom, retching. That awful feeling then gave way to cramping in my stomach.

During my 20s, I had weathered some nasty stomach infections and tropical parasites while travelling in India. Whatever I was going through now, it was worse.

At around 2am, my stomach went into spasm. I couldn’t take it any more. Until then I had been managing to cope emotionally. But the ordeal was so utterly overwhelming I burst into tears on the bathroom floor and prayed for it not to get any worse.

I live alone in West London and have never felt so relieved that my retired parents live nearby. First thing in the morning, I called my 65-year-old father who came round to look after me.

It’s one of the few times in my life that I felt I needed it. For the following three days, he helped nurse me back to health with rehydrating fluids, soup and paracetamol, while Tess, the family border terrier, sat on my bed for company.

Luckily my father’s health is pretty robust as I would have hated to infect him. I am also lucky because my training as a medical herbalist has given me knowledge about viruses and how they infect.

The most contagious stage of a viral infection is when you are coughing, sneezing and your nose is streaming. I took care to sneeze into tissues, away from people and to keep washing my hands.

All in all I was bed-ridden for four days. Only on day two did I manage to drink water and keep it down. On day three, I was able to drink a little soup.

On day four, the fever began to subside and I could feel my strength coming back.

The experience left me feeling shaken. At first I thought such a nasty illness might have been food poisoning or a vomiting virus – but that didn’t fit with the sore throat and runny nose.

So I called my doctor who warned it was almost certainly swine flu, a diagnosis that would fit every symptom I suffered. It was certainly severe and I pity the thousands of other people who go through it too.

I am healthy and still fairly young, yet this tested every inch of me, physically and emotionally. I got through this without Tamiflu  even if I had obtained some, it would have been too late to take it - but others will need it desperately.

This virus is spreading far faster than experts imagined and it is absolutely vital people get the help they need in time.

COMMENT: If this is what a healthy person at 37 could go thru during a first wave then what will it be like during a second or third wave?  Tip