SEATTLE -- Patients continue to flood emergency rooms complaining of flu symptoms during what state health leaders have deemed a flu epidemic.

Queen Anne’s Bill Gould was one of them. Earlier this week, a doctor prescribed him Tamiflu.

“I started to take it but I got worse and worse and worse,” Gould said. “I was barely conscious. I didn’t know what time it was. I wasn’t sure what day it was. Almost out of control. I had a hard time walking and sitting.”

Gould, who is in his seventies, says he was reading in his favorite chair Wednesday evening when he fell out of his chair. His wife Jeanette called 911, and an ambulance brought him to Virginia Mason’s Medical Center.

Virginia Mason officials say their emergency rooms are seeing an increase in flu patients. Doctors say the H3N2, the dominant flu strain this year, is especially rough on seniors and more likely to cause pneumonia and hospitalization.

“I was pitiful, just lying there hoping there was an end to the tunnel I was in – a happy ending to the tunnel, and eventually there was,” Gould said, explaining doctors gave him a sodium chloride drip and antibiotics.

Gould says he has received the flu shot every year since 1968, and every year, save this year and last year, it’s worked.

“There’s no guarantees in life. And if you get the flu you’re going to pay a heavy price in life. If someone offers you a one in four chance of not getting it, you leap for it,” Gould said.

After two days in the hospital, Gould is now recovering at home and will finish his last doses of Tamiflu and antibiotics on Sunday.

“I'm feeling tired. I'm feeling worn,” Gould said. “I'm feeling very relieved to be home.”

Copyright 2016 KING