The Demon Named Influenza A

Last year it was Nightmare On Influenza B Street. This year it's his brother the Demon Influenza A. If you thought that you've seen it all, been through it all and know it all after an experience with Influenza B, you're sadly mistaken.

1. Your Brain is Just One Big Blob of Goo
Nothing makes sense. You see A and B are supposed to go together, but somehow you can't even put them together. Your brain is jammed. Its simplicity just bamboozles you. No matter how hard you try, you can't even tell which is your left hand. Your brain is just in the Cloud up there.

2. Six-Packs, Eight-Packs, Quadruple Packs
You'll have all those packs above in no time with all the pulling and stretching that your body has to accommodate for those hours and hours of never-ending-marathon-coughs. You'll instantly turn into Mr or Miss Body-Building-Machine unlike some Mr-I'll-Be-Back who took years and yet could never come back somehow... Eeeeeewwwww... I'd rather choose Wolverine over Arnie any day. *sigh* Wolverine....... *drools* *SLAPS SELF!* Forgive my foggy state of mind. It's the virus that's turned my brain into this blob of goo drooling over some silly nonexistent mutant.

3. Casper the Ghost
You know how Casper tries to makes friends with everybody but ends up scaring everybody out of their wits? That's how you will feel. Even the reflection of your own hand will cause you to jump 10-feet out of your skin. I was constantly being frightened by any sound and everything that moved. I would have been a good candidate for a ghost movie. I would just jump and scream even if they moved the camera.

4. A.L.I.E.N
Yup. You read that right. Alien. The one that drips acid saliva and has the never-ending-fond-habit of bursting out from human's rib cages or abdomens. That's how you'd feel when you're coughing and coughing and coughing endlessly. You'd think that the violent, never-ending spasmodic coughs will cause your insides to finally explode out giving birth to a tiny 'cough-alien-baby'.

5. Your Bed is Out to Kill You!
I can't emphasize this point enough. It's sole purpose during this time of unfortunate illness is not to comfort you or give you some relief from the sore, aching body.

You see the virus can be akin to the Mafias. They are both the same. Sadists in the fullest sense. First they beat you up. Then they pull out a tooth here and there. And then they use pliers to pull your fingernails out. And then they 'try' to drown you for 5 minutes while they continue to beat the shit out of you. And then they slowly electrocute you to death. And when you're about to die, they resuscitate you and throw you in your cell to only continue the torture the next day.

So you think the cell is a welcomed relief. But NOOOOOOOOO! You can feel every contour, every crack, every shape and everything. You try to position yourself into a more comfortable position to try to get some relief when suddenly it feels like a sinkhole has appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the cell and it is sucking you in! And then it's GONE! Out of nowhere the cell is suddenly filled with thorns. It is hurting, tearing your skin apart, causing you more pain. When you try to get that bit of rest that you so desperately need it will come back in full force to make sure you don't get that. You then twist, you turn, you curl up, you sleep like a scarecrow, you do whatever it takes to get a teeny-weeny bit of relief. The cell will NEVER give you that. It has formed a pact together with the Mafia (a.k.a Influenza A) and the devil to make you wish you had died before they resuscitated you for tomorrow's round 2.

The cell is YOUR BED.