The H3N2 ‘flunami’ has reduced me to a snivelling wreck and sent my family to hospital

As a tidal wave of flu floods the UK, hospitals are being stretched to the limit. So it’s time to buy Calpol in bulk, says Charlotte Cripps, who’s just survived H3N2 hell with her two children

Nothing could have prepared me for the H3N2 flu strain. It’s “hotter” and “nastier” than previous strains, according to virologists, and I have to say, having had it along with my two young daughters, it’s close to hell.

My eldest daughter, Lola, nine, came home from school early last week with body aches, particularly in her legs. When I took her temperature, the thermometer flashed red. It was a high-grade fever: 39.8°C (103.6°F). Later that night, she started vomiting. I thought it was just regular norovirus.

It was bad timing – and I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it. I’m a working single mum and my other daughter, Liberty, seven, had just had her leg put in a neon pink cast a week before she was due to have an operation on her foot.

The next morning, Lola still couldn’t keep any water or food down, and her fever hit 39.9°C. Liberty had started to look pale and was limp on the bed.

I grabbed the thermometer – her temperature was 38.8°C. But then I came out in the same cold sweats – and had a fever too.

By day three, Lola’s symptoms had developed into a relentless cough and I couldn’t keep on top of her fever.

By this point, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck and we all looked half-dead. I couldn’t breathe through my nose and we all shivered with cold, even though we all had high fevers.

The flat was littered with empty Calpol Six Plus bottles – costing £3.50 each – and I needed to replace the batteries in the thermometer as I was using it every few hours. Luckily, there is a Budgens over the road and I restocked everything.

The trouble is nobody wants to visit if you have super flu. The mutant strain has sparked an NHS meltdown with hospitals declaring “critical incidents” and the sick being urged to wear masks if they have to go outside, to tackle the wave.

An average of 2,660 patients per day were in a hospital bed with flu last week – the highest ever for this time of year and up 55 per cent from the previous week. It means there are enough flu patients each day to fill more than three whole hospital trusts.

‘The mutant strain has sparked an NHS meltdown with hospitals declaring “critical incidents” and the sick being urged to wear masks if they have to go outside, to tackle the wave’ (PA)

It’s more infectious because it’s different to flu strains seen in the UK in recent years, meaning people are less immune if they contract it. The UK Health Security Agency reported last month that the new strain was driving the early surge in cases – and now it is in full swing.

By Saturday night, H3N2 had reduced me to a snivelling wreck. At 10pm I called 111. It was Lola’s shortness of breath that concerned the call handler, who pointed out that he was not medically trained.

He put me on hold as he talked to a colleague. I was crying with exhaustion. Eventually, he told me that Lola needed to be seen urgently – but they had no GP appointments left over the weekend.

“Sorry, we are abnormally busy because of the flu,” he explained. He told me that my only option was to take Lola to A&E. I was gobsmacked: “The NHS is hardly standing. How will it help anybody if we turn up there with the flu?”

I explained that I also had a fever, and about Liberty being unable to walk. There was no alternative, he said, and I couldn’t wait until the morning as “children can take a turn for the worse quickly”.

That’s when I googled “private doc”. I rang a central London number, but when they quoted me £580 for a home visit, I slammed the phone down. The price alone motivated me to get out of bed and go to the NHS emergency department.

We arrived at A&E around 11pm and were guided to urgent care, where we had to wait over two hours before we were seen by a nurse. Everywhere I looked, people were coughing and struggling with fevers.

The triage nurse checked Lola’s vitals – all seemed okay. Over the next few days, Lola still fought a high fever, but Liberty and I started to recover. By Tuesday, the day of Liberty’s operation, I dropped Lola off at her best friend’s house for 48 hours. She also had the flu – as did both her parents. The class WhatsApp had alerted me to the reality of the situation: out of Lola’s class of 30, only 13 were left standing.

We’re all still suffering from a lingering cough, and Lola’s fever has only just gone. The only good thing is we’ve had it now – but the flu is only just getting started.