Our near-Surgeon General — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN — recently came down with H1N1. In a tent in Afghanistan while reporting on wartime healthcare. His camera man Scottie McWhinnie succumbed too. Gupta’s description of his symptoms is clear and possibly helpful to point to in your coverage:
It started as a cough. It wasn’t the kind of cough where something is temporarily stuck in your throat. It wasn’t the kind of cough where simply clearing your throat would’ve been adequate. This was the kind of cough that hurts when you do it. A stinging pain that makes you wince and guard and hope that you don’t have to cough again any time soon. [...] I was lightheaded and freezing cold – even though it was over 100 degrees outside at that early hour of the morning.
I was nauseated and my entire body hurt. [...]
I am not someone who gets sick, really ever. And this was the sickest I have ever been. [...] In case you are curious, there wasn’t much the doctors could really do for me. Some Tylenol and a sinus decongestant [...]. We also got IV fluids, given our inability to keep anything down. Within a couple days, I felt a lot better, and a few days after that – I was back to normal.
He signs off by noting that most people will have one big advantage: being cared for in the comfort of their own homes.
[Update 25 September 2009: Turns out NPR's April Fulton had already highlighted Gupta's account on NPR's Health Blog a day before we wrote about it.]
