1. I said assumed H1N1. My mom hasn't entered the hospital for treatment, or been diagnosed with H1N1. We say assumed because a. Mom has her standard flu shot several weeks ago b. she has been volunteering as a library reading tutor to a child in elementary school who was diagnosed with actual A/H1N1 just prior to Mom going down.

2. there are no separate symptoms for A/H1N1 - flu is flu. Mom's symptoms include coughing, sore throat, runny nose, fever, weakness. She's a 79 year old woman, and at the moment needs to be helped out of the bed to go to the bathroom. For 3 days she couldn't manage that. No appetite, but she is keeping up on fluids and weak digestables.

In the end I don't give a hoot what brand of flu she has - alot of folks have it right now, and it is generally severe enough to take precautions from getting it yourself, but also requires some time from all of us to care for people who are down with the flu. As pandemics are supposed to go, this one is working out pretty much as expected.