The Swine Flu Survival Guide

Surviving Swine Flu is really quite simple, as long as you make sure to keep these important tips in mind:

1. Don't expect to feel like anything even mildly resembling a human the first day. You will be something along the lines of a lump of thing that is incapable of doing anything other than sleep, wake up and make the occasional fevered grunt of appriciation for being sick, and then go back to sleep within the first five minutes. There will be no relief for you either because you will be unconcious for about a full twenty-four hours (grunts notwithstanding) so you will not be able to take pills or medication in general.

2. Use the bathroom before you get sick. That's right, get everything out of your system. You will not be able to get up for the first two days anyway, so that makes bathroom breaks somewhat difficult. Besides, even if by some miracle you do manage to sit up, you will probably collapse a few times on your way to and from the toilet. It's not a pretty sight. At all.

3. Stuff your face. I mean it. Eat as much as you possibly can because let me tell you, there will be absolutely no food consumed in any way, shape, or form until the evening of day 3. Nada. So either you are like me and have enough body fat that it doesn't matter, or you make sure you stock up on it right before you become totally incapacitated.

4. For christ's sake, buy some bleeding chapstick. You will just so regret it if you don't by the time you've gone through four tissue boxes and your lips are singing a chorus of "Hark, I fucking hurt."

5. Make sure you have friends willing to be horrible students and text in class. It breaks the monotony up a bit because you have someone to bitch to about how awful you feel and how much work you are about to have to make up.

6. You're contageous before your symptoms. So if your friends have swine and you've been hanging out around them, make sure you say hi to your worst enemy at least three times a day. That way if you get infected you might be able to take them out while you're at it.

7. Have a laptop. Sitting up will exhaust you and take energy, so just grab a laptop. You could practice being a cotton farmer on farmville or something, anything really, but it's a lot more interesting than watching television. Trust me, by the time you are on your fifth law and order SVU rerun you will want to go to school and be healthy so badly you would even start off with evil-teacher-from-the-black-lagoon's class.

8. Tylenol is magical. When it's day two and you're actually capable of being quasi-awake for more than two seconds at a time you'll be awake to really process just how awful and feverish you feel. This is when you go on a medication binge and have as much as often as the instructions permit in hopes you might feel a little less crappy. It doesn't do much, but it gives you piece of mind and well, it probably did something.

9. Go to the doctor, even though there isn't much point because it's a viral infection so it's not like it can be treated. You might get lucky and be one of the priveledged few to use the side enterance for special cases and go into the quarentine room. It's pretty awesome and you feel damn special. Not to mention no one can see you so if you really feel like it you can show up in say, a pig costume. Get it..... swine flu..... pig costume? Yea. I'm clever.

10. Try to pick a week you have nothing due. This way, when you actually make it back to school, you don't get completely, totally, and utterly owned by a workload.

And that's really about it. :) Now you guys will all be pros at managing to survive swine flu!

Also note for Tea: Sorry about vanishing on FB chat, it kicked me off for some reason and didn't like letting me back on.