Swine Flu and other ailments

The lack of activity on my blog is directly related to the time I've spent this past week hacking up a lung. I keep thinking I have swine flu, my friends Ariel and @mintcool tell me that I don't have it because I'm still alive. I guess the fact that I never had a fever means that I probably don't have it, but apparently you can get a mild case of it and think it's only a regular flu. These are the symptoms and backup for my theories:

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If you or a member of your family has a fever or high temperature (over 38°C/100.4°F) and two or more of the following symptoms, you may have swine flu:
unusual tiredness,
headache,
runny nose,
sore throat,
shortness of breath or cough,
loss of appetite,
aching muscles,
diarrhoea or vomiting.

also check out this article:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/18/h1n1.staying.healthy/index.html

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I had 5 of the symptoms so I thought maybe I had it, especially since a mom at the robot birthday party last Sunday mentioned that she probably had it but she never went to the doctor to confirm it. Which brings me to the mommy gripe of the day--why are you at a birthday party if you think you've just had swine flu? I just don't understand people who bring kids and themselves to events when they are seriously sick. Like one day in Sunday School, this kid throws up right in front of H and his dad says, oh he did that this morning at home too and I thought he was all better so we brought him. Excuse me???? I can understand if you do that for school because you have to work and you can't afford to have a temporary nanny for the day so you slip your kid an 8 hour tylenol and hope for the best. But why would you do that on Sunday when you can take care of your kid yourself and help him get better? If someone has any explanation for this that makes sense, I would love to hear it.

I was never this sick before I had kids. Especially since H started school, the germs have been a non-stop daily assault. When I was young (in my 20s!) I usually took a week to get over a cold. Now it's two if I'm lucky. And since H seems to bring a new cold home every day of the cold season (Sept thru May), I'm sick a lot more than I've ever been in my life. Strangely, I can't remember being sick this much when I was a kid. How could the world change so much in a couple of decades? Viruses and bacteria seem stronger now. How soon will it be before they mutate to the point where we can't contain them anymore?

Obviously, I am delirious because I am still sick. Going into week 2 today...