I was in junior high. I was home sick for a solid week. I finally started feeling better, so the next week I returned to school. Then BAM, I got hit with a rebound and was out for another full week.
Oh, yes, I remember the Hong Kong flu!
~VOW
Just for the record, the HK 'flu was the first and last time I had an influenza virus. I was 7 years old, I’m now nearly 60.
Either I’ve been extraordinarily lucky, or I have Chuck Norris genes and the virus avoids me like the plague.
This has jogged my memory of hearing talk about the Hong Kong Flu. I had forgotten about it entirely. In 1968 I was 9 and had no idea that it was a pandemic or what that meant. Nobody I knew got sick.
I graduated from HS in 68. I don’t remember it at all. But for as long as I can remember, in winter I’m almost always down for 3-5 days with bronchitis following a cold. From descriptions of the flu, my bronchitis is at least as severe, but with different symptoms. As far as I can figure out, I’ve never gotten the flu: never fever or muscle aches or nausea. Instead, I get severe coughing and wheezing.
I was 4, so no memories of the 1968 flu for me. No idea if I even got it.
I did have a very nasty flu in the fall of 1982 that laid me out for a week. I was in my first semester at UVa at the time and was running a high fever and couldn’t keep much of anything down. My roommate (who miraculously did not come down with this) kept having to bring me food because I didn’t have the strength to get to the cafeterias.
Four days in she hauled me down to Student Health (which was part of the UVa Hospital so we got really good health care) for my second visit (the first time I wasn’t so badly off and went by myself and they asked me if there was any chance I was pregnant–uhm, no) and they took one look at me and asked me if I wanted to lie down. Yes, please!
They gave me on an IV to rehydrate me and also gave me anti-nausea medication, but I think by then I was mostly over it. That was also when I learned to never, ever let a doctor stick an IV needle in me and also that my left arm is pants when it comes to finding a good vein.
I remember 1968, I was in New Orleans until May, then in Europe the rest of the year, and turned 30. I don’t remember ever hearing about the flu.
I was 4, so I don’t remember it, but I do remember my parents talking about it. I think my mom and I both got it pretty bad–not sure if my dad did. My mom used to talk about how horrible it was because she was really sick but had me to take care of because my dad was working out of town (they couldn’t afford for him to take time off work).