Hi, my name is Influenza, I am an immortal virus that you will never get rid of >:D Your vaccines may prevent me from infecting you but it never lasts long because I always change and so do my friends. Scientists like classifying us so they know what we can do, like Type A, who has always been tricky for them in the lab; they’re constantly going through puberty. Type B is the group that changes slower and needs time to develop. Type C on the other hand infects people a lot, they’re also known as the common cold, you may have met a few of us before.
I rely on your cells to get food and live, by penetrating your cell’s cell wall and going into the nucleus I can take control over that cell. However, I don’t stop there; I continue to spread within your body so that I will never go hungry. You humans help me go places as well; I would never have travelled the world unless you did. There were so many things to see in Russia, Spain, China and Mexico. I recently moved to Canada, so Canadians beware >:)
Sept 8, 2012
Today I was flowing in the air, watching Harry Potter (P.S. I love Draco!) . you know, I planned to sit on the sofa with a girl called Kelly. Suddenly, I was inhaled in the Kelly’s throat with the chocolate in her mouth. I was stuck to the chocolate till I invaded her cells. So now, I have to do my job, take over the cell’s manufacturing ability to make clones. BTW, I forget to mention my friends, I am very good at socializing. I have ten thousand friends coming with me; of course, we made each other. Anyway, who cares!
With the help of my friends, we invaded many brand new cells and we even made more friends. The more, the faster. Kelly’s symptom came rapidly. When her body cell was taken over by an invading virus, that’s me, it sent out a distress signal as MHCs. (for the people who don’t know what MHCs are. Basically, they transport chemical from inside the cell to the cell surface.) MHCs carried viral proteins to the surface which were brought to the attention of killer T- cells (T-cells are sort of roaming the body looking for trouble).
HOWEVER, THEY ARE OUR ENEMIES!
When T-cells saw the distress signal, coating the cell with toxic chemicals killing us!
THEY KILLED SOOOO MANY OF US, even those cute girls (they were soo hot!). Soon, the infected spot in Kelly’s throat was clogged with debris from dead cells, including our friends.
THEY KILLED SOOOO MANY OF US, even those cute girls (they were soo hot!). Soon, the infected spot in Kelly’s throat was clogged with debris from dead cells, including our friends.
Later, the caretaker, macrophage (another type of cell), cleaned up the “mess” with histamine. Histamine booted the blood flow to our territory to get more white blood cells. Kelly became aware of our battle raging in her throat. The temperature increased 3 degrees because of our fire. Her pain threshold was lowered, making her limbs ache. Then a fever commenced as her whole body temp rose to help new cells grow and to repair the damage. Kelly started to shiver as her muscles contract to generate heat. At the same time, blood vessels in your brain swell, increasing pressure and giving you a headache.
And finally, Kelly was soo sick that she could not go to school. She took two days off school. Poor Kelly, lol. Anyways, I did what I was born to do.Sept 9, 2012
Yesterday I went to see my family doctor. I had a cold, which is prettyironic. My doctor showed me my body structure, my “bones”, and my organisms.That totally shocked me; that was actually the first time I had seen my body!My body is 96 (80 to 120 normally) nanometers in diameter and usually roughlyspherical. Also, the filamentous forms are more cordlike structure up to 500micrometers long on the surfaces in infected cells. My “skin” is made of aviral envelope containing two main types of glycoproteins, wrapped around acentral core. The central core contains the viral RNA genome and other viralproteins that package and protect my RNA. Each “RNA” contains either one or twogenes, which code for a gene product (protein). Beside Hem agglutinin (HA) andneuraminidase (NA) are the two large glycoproteins on the outside of my body.HA is a lectin that mediates binding me to target cells and entry of the viralgenome into the target cell. That’s how I survive!
(P.S. I am better now, still the medicine smells aweful!)
