[link to www.webmd.com
In 1918, a lot of people didn't actually die from the flu. The flu progressed because it hit them so hard, and if young, we think a lot these people had a cytokine storm, a condition where their younger stronger immune system acted powerfully and ended up shutting down their bodies.
Ordinarily very young children, say 3-5 years old or elderly folks post 65+ get the worst of the flu case-fatalities. Not so with that flu. Not so with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic either. It affected those aged 15-35 years old the most. That's not normal. It shocks the young people and they're the most cavalier about being sick. Sometimes they'd get sick in one day, and the next morning someone would find them dead or deathly ill.
In addition pregnant women are always going to have issues. The strain of carrying a child, caring for both patients, getting the mother to eat enough under these circumstances, it quite difficult. If she's a single mom by herself, and or caring for another child, you're going to have to be very proactive because the death rate is high.
In 1918, those of Mexican and Native American ancestry saw very high death clusters in families, sometimes wiping them out entirely.
In many cases a secondary infection attacked their lung alveoli itself, and forming pus and coating it so not enough gas flow (oxygen or carbon dioxide) across it to and from the red blood cells. Sometimes that was influenza which has been largely choking them with mucus, but then the alveoli, but also other pathogens too. The patients end up cyanotic and drowning in a blend of their mucus/pus. The pleural, the membranes protecting the lungs rub and are painful.
You're screwed in a pandemic if it's bacterial, because you don't have the antibiotics to treat the pus forming.
You've got to nip it in the bud early in the 2nd week, otherwise the patient is under poor nutrition, dirty laundry since probably there's no way to keep up on laundry...so terrible sanitary conditions, too weak to bathe, too sick to cook, sweaty, clammy, dehydrated, and worsening.
Since antivirals only lessen symptoms, and probably you won't be able to source them, then you're going to have to focus and do every trick in the book to even the odds for your loved one.
Don't let it get that far. Some of you might have had brochitus from the sound of it based upon your length of illness. Others might have been borderline pneumonia. When a flu lasts more than 14 days something is very wrong and you should be getting medical attention and not fooling around.