This won't make me any friends, but I have to admit: until now, I've gotten a sort of twisted enjoyment out of our little H1N1 pandemic.
No doubt I'd see this differently if I were, say, a mom afraid for my kids' health, or if I didn't have a constitution of steel, but as I'm not and I do, respectively, I've been wryly amused to watch the whole drama unfold.
First there was the swine flu stage - which was mostly entertaining because of the name. And let's not deny it: in the scheme of disease names, it was pretty funny. You could imagine an I-survived-the-swine-flu T-shirt industry. For those of us with a macabre side, there'd be instant levity in the obits column: so-and-so who succumbed to swine flu is up there with crocodile hunter Steve Irwin's death-by-stingray. Twisted, perhaps, but funny.
And then, spoilsports that they are, the powers-that-be kyboshed the "swine flu" tag. Instead, we got this nasty clinical, distinctly-unfunny beast called H1N1.
But we still had a pandemic, we were told. Which was something. Aside from a few medical professionals who insist that pandemic is a normal term to describe a disease that's in many countries and sustaining transmission in them, most of us know differently.
Or we did, before constant hypnotic repetition knocked it out of us.
But let's think back here. Pandemic didn't use to mean a rash of cases of the flu in various countries. Pandemic used to be an epic word. It conjured up the bubonic plague. Germ-driven apocalypse.
Not the flu.
And besides the humour factor, there was the sheer drama of the thing.
As the mythical H1N1 hovered over us, poised to strike at any moment, we saw governments scurry towards pandemic preparedness and vaccines preparation.
Workplaces around the world, including my own, began their own, almost-military counter-attack, busting out sanitizing hand lotion and anti-bacterial moist towlettes. A friend of mine in Paris tells me that her work is not only sending around weekly H1N1 updates and has tacked up how-to-wash-your-hands diagrams, but has actually instituted anti-H1N1 training.
But now here's the thing: After all the wailing and fear mongering, the damn thing is actually here.
And it's gross.
Last week, we reported a couple cases in the Coast school system. And since then, I've bumped into at least three other Coasters who are battling it, plus a couple Vancouverites. So it's definitely out there.
And the crucial detail: it looks miserable. Not deadly. Not epic. But seriously, seriously not fun. And distinctly harder to mock.
So regrettably, after months of pooh-poohing H1N1 preparations as a silly fad, I'm finally on board. And having watched one greenish-tinged co-worker struggling with it all week, I vote that we all kick up the handwashing a notch, goop on the sanitizing lotion, battle this bug. Not because it's the plague. Not because it's going to wipe as all out.
But because it's here. And it's a wretched, wretched flu.
