For many, the Swine Flu, the vaccines, and the stories of the numerous deaths have disappeared into the distant background. But for a Reading man, it’s part of his everyday life.
Pat Irwin contracted the disease before a vaccine was available. Surviving was just one of many fights in his continued battle with H1N1.
"Tell you what man, it's no fun learning how to walk again", Irwin said during one of his rehabilitation sessions.
A walk down the hall of the Drake Center would have been, at one point, second nature to this 38 year old. However, the last three months of his life have been anything but normal. Pat's fight for life began this past October at Jewish Hospital.
"He was burning up with fever, and they admitted him right away", Pat’s sister Andrea Baker said. "And they actually put him in the ICU and it was only like 2 or 3 hours and I was called to get up there that they didn't think he was going to survive."
In a relatively short amount of time, the H1N1 virus had taken its toll on an otherwise healthy man, leaving him just a breath away from death.
"The majority of the patients that we've seen with H1N1 do not get this sick", Jewish Hospital pulmonary specialist Dr. Erich Walder said. “The outlook was bleak”, Walder said.
"Told me that I wasn't going to survive the night. My kidneys were shutting down, my blood pressure was dropping like a rock, somehow I survived, I don't know how", said Irwin.
Pat was a patient in the Intensive Care Unit for over two months and was transferred to the Drake Center on Christmas Eve. There, he began another part of his recovery.
"My muscles are a shell of what they used to be", Pat said.
With bills mounting and the possibility of losing his home, he continues his rehab with one goal in mind.
"I'm looking forward to going back to work,” he said. “I mean, I worked 20 years straight hating work, you know, but now I want to go to work."
Irwin is expected to be released from the Drake Center on Friday.
