I do not have the H1N1 Virus… I think.

It all started on Thursday night over a steak and wine dinner with some close friends. A barely-there cough emerged that evening and I did my best to ignore it. But it got worse overnight and come the next day I was like something out of a George Romero movie — my skeleton ached. My brain felt like it was melting. My five senses were blurred in a confusing haze of total homeostatic failure.

Holy shit, I thought. Is this it? Have I just joined the growing rank of U.S. statistics to have the Biblically-feared “Swine Flu Virus”? As all good hypochondriacs do, I had been keeping a close-but-not-obsessive eye on the pandemic. After all, paying too much attention would freak me out. But when someone like me falls ill, at the exact same time the President of the United States declares a “national emergency,” well, it has a way of scaring the SHIT out of him or her.

Yes, President Obama has signed this declaration as of Friday, October 23rd and announced it the following day. The President called this measure “an important tool in our kit going forward,” reducing the Mind Fuck to sound like a cute set of tools a kid might use to simulate his father in the garage.

My point is, this is a very bad time for us hypochondriacs. Even when the world seems like Sesame St. (at least with the aid of drugs & alcohol) we are acutely aware of possible symptoms our bodies might be experiencing. Often times, this is just in our own heads. Others, they are signs of real-but-harmless conditions. So for a health-obsessed demographic to suddenly find ourselves thrust into the middle of a “national health emergency,” needless to say we are losing some sleep.

Normal folk might lose a few zzzs themselves if they moseyed on over to the charming Center for Disease Control website (cdc.com). Here you will get a lovely spread of charts, graphs and maps to show you in color-coordinated detail just how FUCKED we may be. This is not to be alarmist, but rather, “alert.”

After all, the CDC ain’t exactly going out of their way to sugar-coat this little doozey, as depicted by this excerpt from their site: Please note that the CDC is no longer providing daily updates on case counts in the United States and that the CDC had long advised that these case counts in the United States were incomplete and are likely just the tip of the iceberg.

Right, then. So basically, we’re all passengers on the Titanic and, oh please, don’t mind that giant torn-out section missing from the hull. In the U.S. alone there have been over 30,000 hospitalized cases, and over 2,000 deaths. The American map illustrating the virus’ whereabouts is 99% brown, and it should be noted that brown equals “widespread” in addition to the “shit” we’re all in.

The inevitable has a way of not giving up, so we are all screwed in the cosmic sense, no doubt. But to someone like me, the prospect of “premature” death (the notion of which, I will admit, belongs entirely to the Ego) is a frequent one. My neurosis – and that of my ilk – is a special brand. Contrary to popular belief, hypochondriacs are not paranoid shut-ins afraid of the world at large. I’ve been white-water rafting in the turbulent rapids of Pennsylvania. I’ve been cage-diving with sharks off the coast of Hawaii. I’m not afraid of the world.

Just my body.

So by the time Saturday rolled around and my temperature was soaring at a brain-threatening 103 degrees, I will admit I considered death to be a strong possibility. I know, I know, dust off that violin and shove it up my ass. Well, let’s see how YOU feel when your brain is on the verge of becoming scrambled eggs – all the while the tan news-anchor with thousand-dollar breasts informs you that, “In Redondo Beach, a Swine Flu vaccine clinic drew so many people that it backed up traffic for miles.”

Fortunately for me, my parents just came into town for a week-long vacation (sorry mom and dad) and there is truly no better medicine than family, especially when your father happens to be a brilliant physician and your mother an excellent cook. Doctor’s orders included extra-strength Tylenol (which reduces fever), plenty of fluids, an ice-pack on my head, bed rest and “to chill the hell out, kiddo.” Good advice, all around.

With a medical professional in my midst, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick his brain about a few things related to the Pig Fear that has gripped the nation, and to bestow upon you – loyal FORTH reader – some reassuring facts that might help keep your mind in one piece.

JUNIOR: What’s the difference between Swine Flu and regular flu? How can you tell the two apart?

DOCTOR: You can’t. They have the same symptoms. The only difference is H1N1 has a more aggressive impact on younger patients and pregnant women for some reason.

JUNIOR: So if you get flu-like symptoms, should you go to a hospital to be tested?

DOCTOR: No need. For example, New York State has given ordinance to all the hospitals and clinics not to test for H1N1. First of all, because there are very few kits available to perform the test. Secondly, it doesn’t make any difference from a treatment point-of-view.

JUNIOR: Is that not to cause panic?

DOCTOR: No, there is simply no need. The mortality-rate of the general population with the regular flu is actually higher than the H1N1 strain. H1N1 is particularly harmful to children and pregnant women, who should receive the vaccine before anyone else. But even then, once they take the vaccine, there is nothing they can do aside from taking regular anti-viral medicine such as TamiFlu.

JUNIOR: I’ve read that most people who are getting Swine Flu recover just fine without any formal medical treatment.

DOCTOR: Absolutely. Most of these people will never even know they had H1N1. As far as they know, they just had the flu, period.

JUNIOR: Do you think the media has been handling the situation responsibly?

DOCTOR: Well, the media likes to exaggerate these things to boost-up their ads and ratings and to sell newspapers. Is it worldwide? Yes. But so are other flus and viruses. Once the airplane was invented, everything you could catch was instantly “worldwide.”

JUNIOR: So there is still just a regular flu out there as we speak?

DOCTOR: Correct. And it’s probably the one most people will get.

JUNIOR: Are the vaccines doing more harm than good?

DOCTOR: It’s a personal choice. I know physicians who have never gotten vaccinated and I know physicians who get vaccinated religiously. And in either case, some of them get sick, some of them don’t. For a majority of the population, it is not crucial. But for young children, or pregnant women, or people with already-compromised immune systems from other illnesses, it is encouraged. What I resent is the way in which we have been informed to proceed. At first they panicked everyone into getting the vaccine or they might die. And now that the vaccines are in short-supply, they are telling people, “If you don’t fall in the at-risk category, don’t worry about it.” They play us like a yo-yo.

* * *

Ah yes. The great Holy Yo-Yo of life. It goes up, it comes down. And somewhere in between, we are all going insane with fear and paranoia and mind-shattering terror. One nation, under Fear. But enough with morbid dialectics. As I jam away at my Apple product sipping a steaming cup of green-tea, my fever is a hazy memory and I feel like a million bucks. 72 shitty hours later, make no mistake, this intrepid writer feels like a new man. Did I have the dreaded H1N1 virus?

Shit. Maybe.

But either way, I am living proof that if you — or anyone you love this dark and hopeless winter season — should start to have some symptoms, or even fall ill altogether: DON’T PANIC, to coin Douglas Adams. Truly. Franklin D. was on to something when he said, “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

And as I’ve come to learn (the hard way), when you fear The Pig… shit, buddy, you fear everything.