about two weeks ago I became really sick. Not like anything I have ever experienced before. It started out as a fever then seemed like a normal cold. I got chills, congested, headaches, and then an extremely bad sore throat and vomiting. After 4-5 days of this i went to urgent care and they tested me for strep but it came up negative. Then they tested me for mono and that also came up negative. They knew something was wrong so even tho i didnt test positive for either of those they gave me antibiotics. Still, i had worsening symptoms for a few more days but after the antibiotics seemed to become better. I am just wondering if i had the swine flu? i know that people can recover from it im wondering if i was one of those people?? I started feeling better about a week before all of this swine flu started hitting the news so im just hoping i didnt have it and spread it to anyone... just wondering if anyone can tell me if i might have gotten it?

You might have had 'the flu', but there is no telling what specific kind - and it doesn't matter anyway - the flu is the flu. The only thing that makes "swine flu" any worse from the flu that goes around every year, is that few have immunity to the "swine flu", since it's new.  Oops, seems I have to update my post:  It seems that the swine flu IS so similiar to other flus that OLDER people DO have MORE of a chance of being immune, as they have been exposed to so many other flus. Which explains why most of the victims of swine flu are younger people.

Actually the swine flu is just another variation of the flu virus that we experience every year (bird flu etc), the cdc trys to guess every year which strain of flu will be the most prevalant and gives shots for it. Heres the rub,  all flus are dangerous to the elderly and the very young. Both have weaken or not fully developed immune systems to fight off the disease. The media which includes this station hypes it up and doesnt report this fact to increase viewership. Go ahead buzzblogger and jump in if im wrong. This is another variation of swine flu from 1988, stronger, maybe. But viruses overcome antibodys and meds to survive, hence no cure for the common cold etc. 

Since you asked me to jump in.  ;)

Like it or not, POSTALONE, swine flu is big news right now.  But not only in the media.  This weekend amongst friends I heard constant references to swine flu, and most of them were people joking about it.

The news media as an industry loves to jump onto cycles, and sometimes it can become an echo chamber.  Right now swine flu is the cycle, and so far we aren't seeing the deaths that everyone feared was coming.

However, the  health agencies (like World Health Organization) are still warning about the dangers of this flu.  So I don't think the news is hyping this just for viewers.

As a local news company, we have to look at what stories do our viewers care about, what stories do we feel are interesting and can benefit our viewers, and the stories we need to report for the good of the public (our social responsibility).

I think a lot of people want to know about swine flu because it's a big national story.  They want to know if there are cases in Oregon, and is it spreading, and how sick are the people who get it.  When local schools start sending students home because someone has come down with the flu, that is a story we should be reporting.

I think just as important is to know what the community is thinking.  That is why I love the Your Corner Forums.  We can all share what we think of the stories that are being reported, or even report on things that KMTR doesn't report on.  Western Oregon is a big place with lots of people doing a lot of things.  Use these forums to the fullest!