So just last night we were laying in bed and she couldn't sleep at all as she had a swollen throat and couldn't swallow her saliva. So naturally, we went on NHSdirect to have a look for the solution.
I had never used NHS Direct before but had heard good things about it. When I went to the doctors recently, there was this sign outside the surgery that said something like "If you have swine flu like sympton, go home and die on your own" so I figured there was no point going to the doctors.
Logging on, I went through to the Pandemic Flu section. The fact that they had a logo that looked like the National Lottery wasn't immediately reassuring, but I decided to put Elena's symptons through the "Have you got swine flu?" test by clicking the link at the bottom of that page.
The first question asked the following
Does the patient have any of the following symptoms:
Are they unresponsive or unconscious, floppy, limp, or impossible or difficult to wake?
Do they have a new breathing problem that is so severe that they are unable to finish a sentence? Or if they are a child under 16, are they breathing irregularly, grunting, or is their chest collapsing in as they breathe?
Do they feel that their throat is closing off and they are unable to swallow saliva or drooling excessively?
Does their skin feel icy cold and wet to touch or is there a change in colour – blue or greyness – particularly around the lips, mouth, fingers or toes?
Are they having a fit now?
with the answer yes/no at the bottom. I figured that as she displayed one of these symptoms i.e. not being able to swallow her saliva, that I should answer yes, and pressed enter.
At that point the test was over and the following came up in big red letters
It appears that the patient is seriously ill. We advise that you dial 999 for an ambulance for the patient.
Please note that antivirals are not available from the 999 service.
Oh shit, we thought. Looks like Yes is the wrong answer and means you're going to die. OK try again.
So I went back and clicked no, to which the site thought about it for a bit and then came back with
HTTP 404
Not really sure what that is, but I think I'd prefer that Elena had that than Swine flu so we figured that we'd go for that instead.
At present she is aching all over her body and has a bit of a temperature. Maybe we should go see a REAL doctor...
