If you're feeling a little feverish, and have a bit of a sore throat, we don’t want to alarm you, but it’s just possible you might be coming down with the flu.

Hopefully if you have been hit, yours is a mild case.

But for many, this year’s illness is severe and even fatal. According to the CDC, this year’s flu outbreak is the most widespread it’s ever seen. And the Illinois Department of Public Health says this year’s flu season appears to be peaking early throughout the state - right now, rather than later this winter.

We were joined on the line by Dr. Brian Curtis, the director of physician practice at OSF Medical Group in Peoria as well as Dr. Chris McDowell, an Emergency Physician at SIU School of Medicine and Memorial Medical Center in Springfield.

We’re talking to many of our Illinois delegation this week - yesterday we spoke with suburban Chicago Representative Bill Foster.

We’ve got lots of issues looming in Washington - not the least of which is a potential government shutdown on Friday.

Rep. Cheri Bustos is a Democrat representing Illinois’s 17th District, which includes parts of Peoria and Rockford and the Quad Cities. She joined us on the line.

Could a newcomer - with no prior political experience - take down a seven-term Congressman? That’s the question in Illinois’s 3rd Congressional District in Chicago’s west surburbs, where Dan Lipinski has held office. He took that seat from his father, Bill Lipinski, who represented the district for a dozen years before that.

Now, Marie Newman has garnered the endorsements of everyone from Gloria Steinem to Jan Schakowsky.

Chicago Magazine’s Carol Felsenthal has been reporting on this race - and she joined us on the line.