I almost coughed up my lungs this past weekend. I was hacking away all through the night and couldn’t help but wonder whether or not what I had was the formidable swine flu.

Through my near sleepless night I couldn’t shake the thought of being hauled off to the hospital in a stretcher and making national news as the next confirmed case in the pandemic.

After spending most of my Saturday morning in the urgent care waiting room, my doctor finally confirmed that what I had was just a regular common cold and all I needed was some rest. What a relief that was.

As I drove back home I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was so paranoid. Why are so many germ-o-phobics like me out there going crazy over this whole swine flu thing? Are we overreacting or acting appropriately?

So far, more than 200 cases of swine flu have been confirmed in the U.S. and only one death has been reported. This is a relatively small number considering the population of the United States. The regular flu is much more threatening than that. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year up to 20 percent of the nation’s population is affected by the regular flu and thousands die from flu-related complications.

So is the media hyping up the swine flu because it is something new and they have nothing else to talk about besides the bad economy? Maybe.

The World Health Organization has designated the swine flu situation as a possible pandemic. The last pandemic the world experienced was the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 that claimed the lives of 70 million people. However, current advances in medical technology make it so that there is no way the swine flu would kill that many. Swine flu has only killed one person in the United States, with the rest of the 150 or so deaths occurring in Mexico.

So we really shouldn’t be too worried, at least not here in the U.S. However, we should still be cautious and prepared in this possible pandemic state, doing everything we can to stop the spread of this disease.

Be prepared, not paranoid. This is no reason to stop eating pork, stop attending school, keep your children home from school or act like a hermit. Based on the current number of cases confirmed in the U.S., you are still more likely to get hit by lightning than contract this disease, especially in areas where there have been no confirmed cases.

Also, don’t panic like me and flood the hospitals. I must have waited for four to five hours to see a doctor and I didn’t really need to. I am assuming that I was not the only person there panicking over the sniffles. Let’s leave the hospital open for those who are really sick.

We can take simple yet effective approaches to keeping the swine flu away. Regularly washing and sanitizing your hands will keep you from getting the swine flu and most other diseases for that matter.

Practicing good health habits like eating right and getting enough sleep will also make you less vulnerable to the flu. Just be smart about your health.