I Am Wolverine

B was the first one to get sick.

On Saturday, January 5th, just after her first two days at daycare, B woke up with a low-grade fever. She was laying down on the couch and not being her usual monkey self. The Hub and I decided to cancel our plans to work in the yard and make it a "lounge around the house" day. Suddenly, she started coughing really hard and then vomited all over herself, the couch, and the carpet. Oh hell... Here we go with the daycare germ sharing. For the next few hours, we battled her fever and she slept. By 5 P.M., B was jumping around and energetic as ever. We thought we had dodged a bullet. Little did we know that was just a preview of the horrors yet to come.

It started on Wednesday, the 9th. I was sitting at my desk at work and I felt a tickle in my throat. Then I started coughing. I thought it was from the dry and dusty office air. Thursday, I felt a little more tired than usual. I just couldn't get going. Getting up at 5 A.M. was taking its toll on me, but again, I shrugged my shoulders and had some more coffee. Driving home that afternoon, I got the chills. That evening, I didn't feel like eating dinner and all I wanted to do was go to bed.

Eight days into my new job and I came down with the flu.

Friday morning, I had a pretty high fever and felt awful. B woke up with another fever, too. I emailed my co-workers to tell them that I was staying home that day, wrapped myself up with several blankets, curled up on the couch, and watched cartoons with B. The Hub attended S's awards day ceremony and then worked from home that afternoon. Just like the Saturday before, B felt fine by 5 P.M. I was not so lucky. My fever spiked and I couldn't move. I was coughing and congested. The Hub practically carried me to bed that night and there I stayed for the next 48 hours.

I'm not too clear on the sequence of events during that time. At one point, I woke up convinced some mad scientist filled my bones with Adamantium.

Me: My bones are filled with hot metal.
The Hub: Oh yeah?
Me: I am Wolverine.
The Hub: Do I need to take you to the hospital?

I swear to God, they turned me into Wolverine.
I'll prove it once I figure out how to get my claws to poke through my knuckles... 

Photo credit: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/01/the.scene.wolverine/index.html 

I woke up another time, walked into the hall and yelled, "It's 95 degrees in here! Who's fucking with the thermostat?!" I pushed a bunch of buttons on the thermostat and went back to bed. The Hub walked over to the thermostat after I left. It was 72 degrees and I didn't change a thing.

It had been such a long time since I'd felt that sick. It was the kind of sick when you wish you were a little kid again and your mom could take care of you. My body ached and I cried a few times when it felt that I would never be well again. The Hub would bring little plastic cups of NyQuil and Tylenol. He would fill my water glass and rub my back and legs when I swore someone snuck into the house and laid heavy cement blocks on my body. He corralled the kids to the living room and not once did I hear, "Mommy? I need _______!" He even did housework. I didn't have to worry about anything other than my hot metal bones. I fell in love with him all over again that weekend. 

My fever finally broke Sunday night. I was dripping with sweat and thirsty as hell. I couldn't get enough water. It was the first time that I was able to sit upright since Thursday night. It was also the first time I wanted to eat. I warmed up some chicken and noodle soup, took a few bites, and proceeded to vomit. I could not keep any solid food down. But, my fever was gone and I was grateful that I wasn't hallucinating anymore.

From Monday until Wednesday, I would get up each morning, take a shower and get dressed for work. I never made it out the door. I tried. I really tried. But, I still was unable to keep anything down and I was incredibly weak. S woke up with a fever on Monday, but like her little sister, she was fine a few hours later. I believe one of the hardest parts of parenting is trying to take care of a sick child when you, yourself are sick. I guess The Hub felt left out, because he started to feel sick Tuesday afternoon. He stopped by a Minute Clinic and tested positive with the flu, but the doctor prescribed Tamiflu and he was fine the next day.

I lost 10 lbs over the course of eight days. One would think I would be stoked that I finally lost my baby weight from my pregnancy with B... ahem, three and a half years ago... but I looked sickly and I was weak. My first meal was cucumber slices, soda crackers, and ginger ale. My second meal was three chicken nuggets and edamame. So far, I've put 2 lbs back on and I'm sure by next week, I'll be back to my normal weight. Sigh.

By Thursday morning, I was determined to go to work. I was no longer contagious and I was finally able to keep food down. My co-workers were extremely compassionate and even helped me with the work I missed the four days I was out. I was able to go back to normal life slowly. No one expected me to be at 100%. It was lovely. I was able to catch up on everything and finish out the work week.

I attacked the house with Lysol, bought everyone new tooth brushes, and washed all the bed sheets and pillow cases. I restocked the medicine cabinet with multi-vitamins and I am pushing frequent hand washing like a drill sergeant. I battled the mutant virus and came out alive. I am Wolverine.

Still waiting on those damn metal claws...

Yuck! Don't Touch That! Part II

It's that time of year again! The air is cold. Frost covers the ground. Time to dig out the winter jackets, hats, and mittens from the back of the closet. People huddle close to keep warm while walking in a winter wonderland. That's right, folks! It's cold and flu season! I've shared before that I am not a "sanitizer mom." Rather, I am a hand-washing enthusiast. (Re: Yuck! Don't Touch That!) However, during the winter months, I kick up my hand-washing reminders for the kids. I refill the soap dispensers near every sink with moisture rich soaps to keep our hands from drying out. I'll even break out the Lysol to wipe down door handles and light switches. I read somewhere that the cold does not bring illness. Instead, the cold forces people into close quarters where the warm air is re-circulated and germs have a captive audience.

So far, my family has not suffered from the flu or a bad cold. Knock on wood. Unfortunately, the "ick" is all around us... The Hub's co-workers come to work with the stomach flu, other parents send their boogery kids to school, or we simply stand in the check out line at the grocery store with someone who is dangerously close to coughing up a lung. People don't stop when they are ill anymore. It's not like the good ol' days of The Brady Bunch, when Jan sneezed twice and Carol Brady called the doctor. No, life is too busy for a cold. We push on and infect anyone who gets in our way. 

"Mike, Cindy has the sniffles.
I think it's time to quarantine the children and burn down the house.
It's a cesspool of disease in here."

The Disney channel runs a PSA to remind kids to wash their hands and to avoid touching their eyes, nose, and mouth during cold/flu season. I believe that it is a pretty simple and effective way to avoid the common cold. My kids, however, struggle to grasp the concept. For the last few weeks, my daughter, S, was on a mission to pull a loose baby tooth. It was her 5th one and she wanted to get her dollar from the Tooth Fairy. I would constantly catch her with her fingers in her mouth, wiggling that little tooth. She would get off the school bus, wiggling her tooth. She would walk through the grocery store and help me place items in the cart, wiggling her tooth. She would play outside or with other kids and wiggle her tooth. No matter how many times I told her to stop, question the cleanliness of her fingers, or remind her of the millions of germs dancing on her hands, she wiggled that tooth. I am so glad it finally came out last night. 

My daughter, B, always has something in her mouth. When she was a baby, just learning to crawl, B would roll over on her tummy and pick at the living room carpet, looking for loose carpet fibers. As soon as she found one, she would put it in her mouth. Earlier this year, I spent a whole day in a panic, trying to figure out if she swallowed a penny. She recently gave up her binkie. The Hub and I were tired of searching for misplaced pacifiers and when she lost her last one, we told her she was out of luck. After a week, she stopped asking about it. But, now she likes to chew on pencils and pencil erasers. Hands touch pencils... um, yuck. If I got a nickel for every time I told her to stop putting stuff in her mouth, I could pay someone else to tell her for me.

Lately, we've had the heat on in the house. I've noticed my contacts have been dry and irritating my eyes. I have a pair of eyeglasses. I don't like to wear them. They're wire frames circa 1994. The lenses are too thick for the frames which makes it look like I'm wearing coke bottle glasses. They also don't fit my face correctly. The nose piece highlights the bump on my nose from when I broke it during a softball game over 20 years ago. I don't get dolled up to go to the store, but I refuse to wear my glasses out in public. I should get new glasses. I wish I still had my pink plastic frames from the 80's...  I hear they're back in style.

I had glasses like these, except they were pink.
Back then, I looked like a dork. Now, they would call me a hipster. 

Getting back to the contacts...

While at the grocery store yesterday, my eyes were really itchy and dry. So what do I do? I reached up and rubbed my eyes. I stopped mid-rub. Holy hell, my hands are dirty from touching the shopping cart handle! Visions of Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa danced in my head. I swore I could feel my eye getting pinker by the minute. As soon as I got home, I took out my contacts, flushed my eye with saline solution, and wore my ugly glasses the rest of the night. Right before I went to bed, my eye was sore and kind of goopy. I think I might be okay now, since I woke up without a crusty seal of mucus around my eye and the white of my eye is still... well... white. 

Why am I so worried about pink eye, you ask? I used to work with a real jackass. One day, he overheard an emergency phone conversation I was having with S's daycare teacher. S woke up from her nap and her eye was very pink and I needed to remove her from the daycare immediately. My co-worker said in a very loud voice so the rest of the office could hear, "Pink eye comes from touching your own poop and then rubbing your eyes! Your kid messes with her own poop like a monkey! That's disgusting." See? Told you he was a real jackass. Now, I know that was not the case and my daughter is not a poop-throwing monkey. But, I was mortified that someone would say that (even in jest) about my kid. Now, every time I hear that someone has pink eye, I think of poop-throwing monkeys. Which makes me wonder how many other people think the same thing? 

I call my kids "monkeys" ONLY because they like to climb on things...
  

Moral of the story? Don't be a poop-throwing monkey! Wash your hands and don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. I wish you and yours a very happy and healthy winter season!