Swine... achuuu. I mean.. flu.

So it is after many days that I publish this post.. Right after my 23rd birthday I began coming down with a cold.. or what I thought was a cold. I wont go into all of the disgusting details of what I have been through this week, because I do not believe anyone wants to read that.. but I have never been so sick in my entire life and during this time have experienced a new side of Chicago...

Long story short, by the third day of feeling sick I admitted myself into the hospital. I crawled out of my infected apartment down the elevator and asked my doorman to get me a cab. He must have thought I was a total Hot Mess. First, I was wearing sweat pants (I never wear sweat pants in public, I). I looked like a real, real disaster. I had my black raider sweat pants on, pink tennis shoes, a baseball cap with my glasses and was as pale as a ghost. I fell into the cab and told the driver Northwestern Hospital, ER. The cab driver immediately shut the window from the front of the cab to the back of the cab. Apparently, I looked contagious and he didn't want to catch this (I don't blame him).

When I got to the hospital it was filled of pathetic looking people like myself. I went to the front desk and some perky front desk attendant asked "HI! How Can I help you!". I responded "drugs". I gave her my information and sat in the filled waiting room. I heard my name called and it was this cute man nurse.. of course I get the cute man.. and I am going to have to tell him all of the disgusting things I have been feeling the last three days. How do you make mucus and vomiting not sound gross. I try to skim the details of my sickness but he asked too many questions. Once we finished he handed me a yellow mask and asked me to wear it over my face. I told him, "oh.. great, I am going to look like Michael Jackson". He didn't find this funny. No sense of humor... bummer. I am guessing my 103 temp and hacking didn't help..

I sit back down for what feels like forever. I kept myself busy by watching the steam fill my glasses every time I exhaled, thanks to my MJ mask. Its the little things.. It was actually quite funny, here we are, in the ER, and still I get judged. Every time I cough every single eye turns to me and they give me the death stare, like I was getting them sick and they were there for fun.A family sitting across from me completely amazed me. The father was sick, and they brought SEVEN people with them to the ER, including three children. The kids had no sense of boundaries or manners. During the time I sat in the waiting room the children managed to step on every scale, sit in EVERY chair, purchase multiple bags of chips, drop them on the floor, and smash them in the carpet. Then walk away. Someone would go meet with the nurses, and the kids would walk in the room like it was their closest relative (and yet, no relation). The nurses kept sending them back to their parents, who didn't even acknowledge the kids awful behavior.

When they finally called me to my room they didn't just call my name but five others.. and made us all walk to our rooms together. This amazed me. I was pretty weak and could have passed out at any minute and they asked us to walk through a hospital. The hospital was PACKED. When we got to the room they just read your last name and said your room. It was unreal.I stayed in the ER most of the evening.

Thankfully my mom and Megan came out and took care of me the rest of the week. There were so many cases of swine flu in Chicago they werent even testing for it, they just treated everyone as if they had it. So I will never know, but I am convinced I had it considering how sick I was.For those of you who havent gotten your flu shots, take it from me, you should.