Health officials believe a mild winter may have delayed the flu outbreak in the Cincinnati area, They say chances are the bug is going to bring even more flu outbreaks in the next four to six weeks. However, doctors said it’s not too late to get a flu shot, and washing hands will also help prevent the spread of flu.

It is that time of year when it stinks to work in public service. Despite hand-washing, hand-sanitizer and my dosing of Airborne on days when I think there’s going to be an overload of germy people around, I still caught it.

Symptoms arrive quickly, doctors said, announced by fever, body aches, a dry cough and extreme tiredness.

Friday night, I went to bed feeling totally fine. Saturday morning, I woke up with a headache that is so bad that I try not to cough or sneeze even though I need to (plus, I could shoot myself for bending over to pick up my shoes – ooowwwweee did that hurt my head!), body aches and severe sweating followed by chills. Today isn’t any better.

I swung through the cold medicine aisle on my way to get orange juice and it was totally wiped out.