(CNN) When Donna Bonin's 13-year-old son recently came down with a sky-high fever, she thought to herself: This can't be the flu. It's November.

But Bonin is an experienced mother of seven, and she'd never seen any of her children so sick. She brought Adrian to the emergency room at Children's Hospital New Orleans, where he was, indeed, diagnosed with influenza.

Adrian is in good company during what has proven to be an extraordinary fall for the flu in parts of the country, causing strain and long waits in the emergency room in some hospitals.

At Children's, they've seen more than 1,400 cases of the flu so far this season, compared to nine cases at this time last year.

At Ochsner Health System, the largest nonprofit health system in Louisiana, there were 6,909 cases of the flu in November -- that's 1,385% more cases than what it saw in November 2018.