H1N1?

Over the past five days, 6/7 family members have been struck with a cold or flu virus. Because it started with an intense sore throat for me, I thought it might be strep throat, but the tell-tale symptoms in the throat never showed up. What was weird was that instead of a bunch of coughing and sneezing initially, it started with a day of fatigue just lying in bed with no/little hunger. I found out last night that friends from our church congregation have confirmed H1N1 ("swine") flu. I compared H1N1 symptoms with the symptoms we have, and they seem to be a pretty good fit.

So life is on hold for us while everyone rests. Except for Daddy, who insists he'll escape it, we're self-quarantined at home. The heat is turned up, and the air humidifier is turned up. I'm also taking a lot of melatonin to see if it helps shorten the course of the illness. I felt better yesterday, so I stayed up to my normal time (past 11 pm). I ended up regretting that, so I don't think just taking melatonin is an adequate substitute for insufficient rest. The evidence I found last year did only point to melatonin being possibly helpful for avoiding ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome), and I have to admit, my lungs seem to be doing OK. So maybe there's merit still to my hypothesis, but right now I'm dissatisfied with anything that doesn't make me feel better immediately.