A month ago today, the world turned upside down in Mexico. What was the cause? Swine Flu. The world was ending, everyone would die, and contagions lurked in every corner.

The nation went on lockdown. There would no longer be public meetings, concerts, museums, restaurants, parks, government offices, or school. Twice daily public health announcements captured every headline and media spot as one by one, every state in the nation became infected.

Every hospital, clinic, and doctor’s office was swarmed and hundreds of mobile teams were dispersed. Surgical masks, gloves, alcohol, vitamin A, anti-virals, and antibacterial gels and soaps. Sold out around the nation within the first hours of public announcement thousands of gloved and masked shoppers cleared out grocery stores, markets, and corner stores; insuring when death came knocking, it would not be in the form of starvation or lack of hygiene.

Every day meant hundreds more infected and more mysterious deaths. The blame was endless across the world as everyone and everyone pointed a finger and gave his say. It was said to of been caused by a bio-terror attack, illegal Mexican immigrants, American spring breakers, industrial pig farms, Asian birds, and global warming.

The W.H.O. kept the world in suspense, level 3, level 4, level 5. A pandemic was imminent, the killer virus cannot be contained, our only option, without a vaccine is to sit back, brace ourselves and wait it out as the the world perished, nation by nation, man by man.

Today’s news update, in a small article tucked neatly into the middle of the newspaper, announced Mexico now has 83 official swine flu deaths and 4,541 persons infected, but no new illnesses or illnesses and only 10 deaths have occured since the initial outbreak.

One month later with the world knowing nothing more than we did on day one other than we should wash our hands and mass vaccine production is in progress, I look back and wonder: Was I dreaming? Did the Pig/Swine/H1N1 flu really happen? Did it really just disappear from Mexico as abruptly and mysteriously as it appeared, only to transform and continue its wrath across the globe? Am I a lucky survivor, or is more to come.