What do you get when you put 600 people that aren’t used to staying up late and have them shake hands and greet people from all over the world? A much greater chance of flu.
If you read the news you would have seen a huge increase in the flu across the United States. Now add the DomainFest environment and it was probably inevitable. Lack of sleep, too much alcohol, and a constant shaking of hands all are the flu’s best friend.
So far I’ve talked to 14 or 15 people that have it pretty bad. I have to admit my temperature dropped today to 100 but my body is a flu fighting machine. Combine that with my wife shoveling a constant barrage of vitamin water, diet coke, mucinex, Tylenol, bagels, and cough drops. I actually feel better. The diet coke thing was brilliant as she knew I was addicted to caffeine and the headache had nothing to do with the flu but withdrawal.
Ron Jackson said his wife was sick. So is Elliot Silver. The guys I hung out with Oscar and Ron….flu city. The girls at the mansion? A few are sick. Just kidding, I haven’t talked to them. Anyone else get the flu in their DomainFest bag?
Update: I’ve almost kicked this thing. While I’m by no means back to my triathlon training, I was able to go put in a full day’s work. I was in my own little world and had a little trouble focusing but a million times better. My family is as strong as there is when it comes to disease. My daughter is 10 and has yet to miss a day of school since she’s been in gradeschool, my wife has never missed a day of work in 15 years, and I, I’ve never missed a day of work at the nursery in 16 years (had the flu 6 years ago on the weekend) but this kicked my ass. Took me three days to stand up. I felt human today and unless you are normally in perfect health, I highly suggest you see a doctor. This could switch to pneumonia VERY quickly. Also it runs HIGH dangerous fevers. I had 103 and I’ve heard even higher. When you break it, you are going to sweat and shiver like you’re doing jumping jacks in the attic. Enjoy and be careful.
Another Update: I’m back bitches. Ran 5 miles and only almost choked to death once. Running a 16 mile run on Sunday. If I make that and don’t die. I’m closing my flu file.
I can feel it there but so far I’ve been able to fight it off. Hopefully it stays that way I don’t join the ranks of the sickly. Meant to say hi to you while I was there mate, long time blog reader. Next year!
Count me in, too. Quite ill at the moment.
I guess I went to bed too early. Hope you/all feel better. Funny though, the flu feels like a hangover to me.
Also got the flu. Started feeling it kick in last night. Tomorrow will be terrible..
Maybe I should consider myself lucky that I had a cough before and during DomainFest and thus took it a bit easy. After almost sleeping a full day after my trip back I already feel a lot better.
+1 I blame the awful food
It could also be the giant petri dish aka the grotto. God only knows what the “green steam” from that place is carrying in it.
It isn’t the grotto.
Last year I was making out with one of the nude girls in the grotto and didn’t get the flu.
This year I’m sick as hell and this is the worst flu I have had for several years.
The girl that I met this year also has the flu and cursed me on the phone and blames my kisses for her flu.
Count me in too, but there are worse ways to spend a super bowl Sunday than on the couch
I was at 100 yesterday ….. seem better today.
LOL, I can’t believe you broke this major story. Now let me put the math together.
1. I met you at lunch 2/2/2011, (where we shook hands)
2. I first felt symptoms 2/5/2011.
3. The CDC estimates a gestation period of about 3 days before flu symptoms arrive.
4. Your fever dropped the date this was posted, 2/6/2011
5. My fever (also a flu fighting machine) just dropped today, 2/7/2011, 1 days later.
Hmmmm, I wonder who I caught it from??? LOL
Dk,
Funny, I told everyone I got it from you at our lunch. 🙂
So basically hand sanitizer and Lysol in the gift bag for the next year domainfest?
I am fortunate, as other than being tired from night after night of 4 hour sleep, I am just a little tired. Otherwise I am feeling fine and almost ready to do it again. Well I am ready after I catch up on work and followup on meetings from DFG. I always enjoy spending time with friends from this industry.
Hahahahahaha…DK and I have been on opposite ends of the couch for the past two days…comparing notes on temp, fever shivers, junk coming out when we cough, muscle spasm…this is TOO funny
Jo,
You are no longer my photographer. I broke my fever and it’s like I was sleeping on a waterbed that broke. I had to change clothes and wash the sheets. Been sitting up for two hours and just released a press release announcing that I was officially not going to die
Hey Shane – I seem to have picked it up too. I started feeling it on the 6th, feel like garbage today! And I had a flu shot! Grrrrr! It was good finally meeting you though……
@Bob, If I can pretend I am a doctor for a minute, one of the problems with flu shots is that they only protect against one specific mutation of the flu virus. Flu viruses are mutating constantly. It makes one question the probability that a given flu shot will be for the flu viruses you will be exposed to months down the road. One might also question the motivation groups have for pushing flu shots on people? hmmmmm…
104.9. Top that! Finally seem to be coming around though… Come to think of it, I met you, DK & Jo, and Bob! That explains it, ha ha.
Bernard,
You should be dead with that temperature
Count me in – this Saturday and Sunday were the worst! I’m about 90% now with a slight cough.
Me too! The flu got me for three days!
You can add me to the list. I had sinus surgery a few years ago as the long flights make you more likely to attract colds. That has helped and I haven’t had a serious cold for almost two years. This one took me down for 3 1/2 days (half speed today). Still working!
wow, unbelievable, I was not hit by the flu, just by jetlag.
Wish you all the best!
Add me and my wife to the count. Finally made it to the doc yesterday. Feeling some what normal so far today, but I thought I was getting better Tuesday, and then..relapse! This has been a bitch!!
It laid me out Sunday and Monday, although the worst is over and I am back at work feeling much better but still not 100%. I ended up treating it as if it was stomach flu (rest and lots of liquids), although at first I thought it was food poisoning.
Hi Shane,
Hope you are starting to feel better! I thought I was getting over it … but today I am in bad shape. I plan to schedule a doctors appointment for tomorrow if I don’t get any better by this afternoon.
Hope you-all feel better!
Noone talked about the weather – it was cold at night! I live in Long Beach, and wanted to put an alert for attendees to bring sweaters, scarves, and hats. Not that cold makes you catch a flu, but the combo lack of sleep and damp cold may lower your immune system to be more susceptable. Haven’t had a cold or flu in years, and I wear a scarf and hat all the time!
Here’s a man who dressed properly: Chris Hartnet – did he get it?
http://www.dnjournal.com/images/lowdown/2011-domainfest-global/hartnetts-620.jpg
Here’s another man who dressed properly: John Berryhill – did he get it?
http://www.dnjournal.com/images/lowdown/2011-domainfest-global/berryhill-diana.jpg
(Gets off soapbox.)
In view of Ron Jackson’s update Legionellosis is the cause of some domainers getting sick, the Pontiac Fever version, it sounds more serious than proper clothing could have protected! From Wikipedia:
“Potential sources of such contaminated water include cooling towers used in industrial cooling water systems as well as in large central air conditioning systems . . . The disease may also be transmitted from contaminated aerosols generated in hot tubs if the disinfection and maintenance program is not done rigorously.[9] Freshwater ponds, creeks, and ornamental fountains are potential sources of Legionella.[10] The disease is particularly associated with hotels, fountains, cruise ships and hospitals with old, poorly maintained pipework and cooling systems.”
It sounds like people became sick before the final party at the mansion, so could the hotel be to blame?
I think is had more to do with old stale monetization methods 😉
Wearing a hat and scarf aren’t going to protect you from getting legionnares. I got chest X-rays today and have early signs of lung infection aka pneumonia.
I would talk to that hotel and the CDC. They can isolate what people got sick and what they all did together. Has anyone contacted a physician to track this? (Read a few too many Tom Clancy novels).
The post is funny, and of course we all got it from each other, but this was not a Hotel Disease, or a Grotto Disease. This is simply a strain of the flu, or some other virus, that we all caught from each other.
This is a very common strain going around. A few weeks before domain fest this went through my office, but I did not get it until domain fest. The day to day of the infection is almost identical person to person. I also have patients who have had it. Two days unbearable cough, with extreme computer avoiding weakness, usually with head pain on the cough, leading to painful muscles around abdomen and back, fairly high fever that lasts about 3 or 4 days, then a feeling of deep crud in your lungs that you cough out, (I am still in that phase) that lasts until about a week from onset of symptoms as I have been told to expect from my staff.
We simply had the joyous, hand holding, cultlike spiritual experience of giving it to each other through the love spread in handshakes and hugs. Still just the plain old flu. But you still gotta love the names grotto flu, or domainers flu 😉
dk what type of flu would I get a lung infection from ?
btw sorry I missed meeting you there . . . but maybe not if you were handing out flu virus 🙂
Domainflu.com was registered in 2006 and will expire on
Expiration date: 05 Mar 2011 19:40:00
@Adam, nice to meet you. If this is the “strong” one, I got to hear about you at the event, and even had you pointed out, even though we never connected. 🙂
Not sure if your question was sarcastic or actual. I will take it as an actual question. (Not about you, but just infections in general, make sure to ask your own doctor, get examined, etc. etc.
My understanding is that pneumonia (lung infection), can either be bacterial or viral. The only way to know for sure is to grab a bit, grow it in a petri dish, and see what’s in there! It is not uncommon when having a viral infection for there to be a build up of gunk in the lungs or bronchial tubes which provides a swampy wet warm place, where a new bacteria is happy to take up shop. So sometimes a viral infection, will lead to a secondary, bacterial infection.
What we all have seems to follow the transmission pattern, and symptom pattern as I understand it of a virus. The only way to truly know for sure is to grab some, culture it for a few days, and then test what it is if it grows. Bacteria will grow in a petri dish, while virus’s will only grow in living cells.
If it is a virus, to truly differentiate which one it is, requires very complex lab equipment unavailable to most doctors.
As I write this at the end of each breath comes a little “death rattle”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_rattle (JK)
@dk uh oh. . . I swear i didn’t do it, but I thought i felt my ears burning . who you hanging with ?
re: the question yea was wondering for real. wasn’t sure what we’re dealing with here but I have had pneumonia ages ago and I recognized the feeling on day 1 as that, and even said to my wife that I felt like this was in my lungs. . . not glad to be right this time. It got there quick .
@adam A couple of Germans who were each a head taller than me.
Or it may have been with a company, who themselves in their title question why to use a parking company at all? 🙂
If my predictions are correct, I should be feeling almost well by Sunday. 🙂 The first weakness and cough I felt were Saturday afternoon. How bout you?
Not sure how many of you follow the corresponding Faceboook thread and what makes it to DNJournal of it, but apparently some people were diagnosed as having cough Legionaire’s disease after a culture was taken.
dk – I know the death rattle you’re talking about, sounds like there’s soap bubbles going on in my throat after each deep breath, not very pleasant. Good meeting you at the auction btw.
Adam – I have what appears to be the start of pneumonia in my left lung as well, but I have yet to feel any sort of pain and my fever appears to be gone again as well.
On antibiotics now – which I normally try to avoid to take… And counter balancing it with Pro-Biotics.
Frank,
Based on what you said I just facebook friended you. I also just put in an email to a friend who is a professor of infectious medicine to see what I can find out from her. If anyone truly was diagnosed with Legionnaires, please email me asap and I will stop making jokes, well maybe. 🙂
Shane,
After my flippant comments about people making too big a deal out of it, it appears that at least one person has been confirmed with Legionaire’s. (This is second hand data, so someone please confirm here if it was you.)
Info on Legionaires I have looked up is get diagnosed early, get on the right antibiotics early to avoid serious illness or death.
Looks like we are all off to the doctor then 🙂
http://www.elliotsblog.com/dfg-illness-update-2902
Here is another apparent confirmation of Leionaire’s in in Domain Name Journal, http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2011/dailyposts/20110210.htm
So I have done a good study on the disease the past hours! Here is the best write up I can find.
http://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/legionnaires/disease_rec.html
There are two “types” of Legionaries. One is very serious and deadly, the other has no significant risks.
The mild version, Pontiac Fever, has an incubation of 1 to 3 days from time of exposure to onset of symptoms. (My first symptoms were 36 hours after saying goodbye to the mansion.)
Legionaries Disease has an onset of symptoms from 2 to 10 days after exposure.
Can people check in here how long after they left the conference until they got symptoms?
Also, the more serious Legionaires disease has listed as possible symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal pain. I had little or none of these. My wife has not reported to me any of these? Anyone else get them?
The Legionaires version of the disease will occur in about 5% of those exposed, while the less serious Pontiac Fever version will effect 90% of those exposed.
I believe there were a bit less than a thousand people at Domain Fest. I have heard numbers sounding like about 50 people who have confirmed are sick, but most people are probably not reporting online about it. 🙂
Also, 100% of friends I know who went, got sick.
Any further info to confirm any of this data will be helpful.
dk