Everywhere you look there's another story of a flu outbreak, according to a Star Tribune arcticle, it's the worst outbreak since the H1N1 a few years ago and it's hitting all ages hard.   More people are ending up in emergency rooms with a wider variety of symptoms too.

You don't need to go very far to see the effects, if it's like our workplace here at Townsquare Media, you've seen almost everyone on the staff out sick at some point.  Radio station are pretty much germ factories too with all the sharing of equipment and microphones.

Since my arrival here about a month ago I had managed to remain in good health.  In fact I did the "knock on wood" thing several times and it seems I had missed the brunt of the various strains of flu that came through the building.

Then came last Friday.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever.  And when I get a fever I become the BIGGEST baby on the face of the Earth.  It's really pathetic.  I had already moved from the bedroom onto the couch because of my coughing when the cold chills hit me around  3 A.M., so I bundled up in my black blanket and went back to the bedroom where my wife was happily sleeping.

I approached the bed hunched over and mumbling something about needling another blanket.  My wife was startled to say the least, she later said I looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame coming to attack her in her sleep.  I imagined myself looking a bit like the 'Sith Lord' from the Star Wars movies, either way, not a pretty site at three in the morning.

So I spent the weekend basically lurching around feeling sorry for myself, sucking on cough drops and drinking Theraflu.  I was really trying to tough it out but I really wanted to just crawl in a hole.

Thankfully I didn't need to head to the emergency room like many others have this year (again, knock on wood).  I guess this is another reason to get the flu shot early, use hand sanitizer and get your Vitamin C.  Unfortunately sometimes the bug just bites you and all the prevention in the world can't stop it.  But hey, at least I got a cool picture out of the whole deal.

Doug Groff
Doug Groff
loading...

More From 98.1 Minnesota's New Country