During the second week of February my wife began complaining of flu-like symptoms: achiness, fatigue, headache, sore throat, etc. Two days later I was having the same issues. At about the fifth day my wife was in real trouble with difficulty breathing and extreme weakness. A nurse friend took her to the ER where one glance of the chest x-ray confirmed that she had a bad case of pneumonia. She was immediately admitted to the hospital and put on oxygen and started on IV antibiotics. I thought I would quickly follow the same course, but my symptoms did not get worse. After another 3-4 days l was okay. However my wife spent 8 days in the hospital. She is now home but still needs supplemental oxygen. Her doc says that it may be another month or two before she is completely weaned from the oxygen given her age and severity of her symptoms. It has been a struggle coping, especially because I quit driving about five years ago. Depending on friends and neighbors is starting to wear on us.
Yes, we both got the flu vaccine last October. And the culture from a nasal swab was positive for one of the strains supposedly covered by vaccine. The response to the finding was that it may have been worse if she had not gotten the flu shot. Who knows?