pinakamaganda

Last 2 weeks, the first case of Swine Flu arrived in Japan. I got the news when I woke up one morning/afternoon after a gimmick with my friend. When I read the whole thing, I suddenly got scared to the highest level and almost drank the whole bottle of rubbing alcohol beside my bed to hopefully cleanse whatever germs there might already be in my body. We went dancing the night when that sick sick sickness arrived. I even did the math, the works: 4 people were confirmed positive. 49 people near these 4 people were quarantined. There were 390 passengers in the plane. Where did the 337 people go… Did some of them went clubbing too..?? That’s my worry #1. But… I thought, it was 4:30 pm when the flight arrived. Maybe add it a little more 2 hours for the usual airport stuffs. Plus maybe 1 hour or 2 hours for travel time if they live in Tokyo… So they will probably arrive at home by 8:30, or maybe 7:30. Ok. But.. considering the jet lag, they probably won’t go clubbing that night. Probably probably.. But what if some of them are still energetic after all these arrival hassles and chose to go clubbing that same night… at my fave club…? Now that’s worry #2, and it made me feel worst.

For 10++ days after that, I always wake up checking my temperature. I drink 2 liters of water everyday (I gulp the whole 2-L bottle!)… and drink even more. I take vitamins morning noon and night. I drink pineapple juice. I wash my hands all the time. I gargle regularly in a day… The paranoia was so strong that I get really really worried everytime I feel a little something. Like after I read the article, I googled everything I need to know about swine flu or influenza. Symptoms, etc. Then my stomach ached, and I felt that I’m having a diarrhea (one of the symptoms, they said)… and then I was going crazy!!!

Good thing I don’t have to ride the trains everyday. So even if it’s raining I still bike just to stay away from a public humid closed place. I counted till 10 days.

Fast forward to two weeks after that clubbing. I did not get any fever, and gladly my coughs/colds, which irritated me for some time before was all gone. In conclusion, I am healthy!!! Thank God for that!!

But earlier this week, swine flu cases in Japan reached to 80++ so suddenly! It was out there far from Tokyo, in Kobe/Osaka specifically. And a few days ago, news told me that it has reached 200+ already, plus they’re now in Tokyo! Seems like everyday it’s getting higher and higher… and closer and closer…

The sudden increase made people panic that masks are now out of stock!

I am still not going out because of it. But sometimes I don’t have a choice. Like last week’s show, despite the swine flu spread, I need to attend the show because I do not want to disappoint my boss. Plus, of course, I want to perform. That was last Sunday, doing the math again… 5 days after, no fever… safe so far…

And tonight I still need to go out because I promised my former Tokyo project members to attend a sort of reunion dinner. It was really not good to back out. I told them at first that I won’t be able to come because I don’t have money but it was really sweet for the organizer to exhaust all the efforts to make it cheaper for me (because I complain about the insanely expensive dinner). So in the end I am going. Not at all sad, I’m actually looking forward to meeting them again.. but this swine flu scare is really… ugly!

Now the really scary part is riding the trains… And I have no other choice to get there but the trains. Riding a taxi is stupid.

My bosses in the office could feel my paranoia, and my colleagues’ too… My bosses are actually cool about the swine flu thing. They seem to be calm. But they do have a point. And I might take these points into consideration (taken from my boss’ point of view):

• I was told that the people who died went to the hospital too late so the hospital couldn’t do anything about it already. May God bless their souls.
• In Japan, the people infected were mostly teenagers. Those who haven’t caught any kind of flu yet so they have no immunity against it. Though I couldn’t recall me getting flu before, I feel that my immunity is quite strong…
• And there are no reported deaths yet in Japan. Once detected at an early stage, everyone’s going to the hospitals already and they’re being treated quickly. Plus the good news, everyone seems to be recovering fine.

Despite these points, I’m still cautious on everything I do. I’m not confident that I’m not susceptible to it. Everyone has to be in this same kind of paranoia I’m in now. But my paranoia is getting exaggerated already. It is killing me and is really stressing me out.

Hopefully everything will still turn out fine. I am hoping that this swine flu will simply vanish in thin air soon… err no, since it’s air-borne… I hope they vanish entirely… Or I hope they will fly somewhere out of Earth, and never come back!

Random Thought: Since I’m developing some kind of hardcore swing application, but still paranoid about swine flu, I often use “SWING FLU” in my mind, instead of swine flu. Ahh crazy mind!!