Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert!

I'm here today to tell you there is no such thing as "just the flu."

The flu is a vile, foul and evil creature. It will beat you down, steal your wallet, spend your money on things like medicine and dance around you as it is doing it.

Despite what people wish for you when they find out you have the flu (take it easy and get some rest), they may as well have wished for a rocket ship to the moon. There is nothing easy about the flu and rest is totally out of the question.

I have been laid up with this nasty virus for almost a week now. Fever, aches, chills, coughs -- you name the symptom and I've got it. And then I get all the associated problems with that -- sore ribs from coughing, headaches from the fever, night sweats from the chills -- and I can understand why people dodge the flu as if it was the plague, only worse.

I'm a relatively intelligent person. It only took me a couple days of self-treatment (no weird home remedies, though) for me to realize I needed to go to the doctor. In reality, it took my wife an even shorter amount of time and she called the doctor for me.

My doctor looked in my ears ("they are filled with fluid"), took my temperature ("yep, you are running a fever"), looked down my throat ("pretty irritated down there") and proclaimed me sick with the flu. I walked out of the office with a list of instructions and three prescriptions.

You see, there is no way to actually treat the flu. You treat the symptoms. And since I had several symptoms, the medicines were going to attack them one at a time. There were two medicines to knock down the fever and deal with the aches, one to deal with the congestion, two to deal with the coughing and one more to help me sleep. I felt like I had a complete pharmacy running through my veins.

I think the worst part of it all has been the lack of sleep. Exhaustion always seems to make things worse. There has been a persistent fog inside my head and hallucinations were not out of the question. For example, I dreamed I was answering e-mails using mental telepathy -- except I wasn't asleep and my eyes were open. And some of these hallucinations may go on to star in their own horror movies.

Even my normally snuggly cats didn't want to have anything to do with me. They stayed away as much as possible and fled when I came shambling down the hallway. Honestly, if they didn't know me by smell, I swear they probably would have arched their backs and hissed at me or just knocked me over since they have more strength than I do right now.

However, all is not lost. The doctor said the flu usually runs its course in about 7 to 10 days. I'm nearing the end of my personal purgatory. And granted, this isn't even close to the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

But the next time someone gets the flu, they will have my sympathies and my distance. There is no way I want to get this again.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a wife who is starting to cough and get the chills. Here we go again.

Honestly, this is all I have dealt with this past week. I haven't paid attention to any news, sports, or anything that wasn't flu related. I know there was a State of the Union speech this week and I think I heard that the Pope got the flu too. For the record, I didn't give it to him. And I took two naps in the time it took me to write out this column. I admit it. I'm pretty pathetic. "I don't know. Fly casual."

Touch 'em all with me, whether you agree with me or criticize me. I like the way you think! Tell me your opinion. Write to me at lfrum@ibsys.com and tell me what you think or if you want to join the ever-growing e-mail list to have my column delivered right to your inbox.