The Sunday of Martin Luther King Jr weekend, I was the
unfortunate recipient of a bout of the stomach flu. This was no joke. I was
fine, and then a couple of hours later after eating one of my favorite meals my
stomach felt weird. Naturally, I attributed it to the food but my daughters
were fine. And then it hit: literally and figuratively.
In the grand scheme of things, it was a relatively
mild case: 1st round was the projectile vomiting; the 2nd
round a couple of hours later was just vomiting; but the 3rd round
at 5 in the morning literally brought me to the floor. There was no time to get
to the bathroom, I took almost everything off of the coffee table trying to
prevent myself from falling, and then the puking commenced even though by that
time nothing was left in my system but water and ginger ale. Brie woke up (we
were sleeping on the 2 sofas in the living room) when she heard the ruckus and
asked, “What are you doing on the floor?” “Puking!” I managed to respond. “Gross!”
She was kind enough to toss me a towel and then went back to sleep. Thanks for
the support. I had absolutely no strength to do anything other than crawl back
to my couch and pull myself up onto it after I put the towel over the wetness
on the floor. When Kitty got up and came downstairs she saw the towel and contents
of the coffee table on the floor. She asked what had happened. I told her, and
superstar that she is: she cleaned up everything and got me some tea. I just
love her!
And then the body aches from the retching settled in.
It felt like someone had used me like a punching bag. My neck, back, stomach
and ribs hurt so much: it was shocking. The body aches lasted until Thursday,
and I was able to go back to work that Friday. Seriously, I wouldn’t wish that
on anyone. Thankfully my daughters didn’t catch it. And I had gotten a flu
shot; but of course that doesn’t handle every strain. Ugh.
So while I spent the next few days prone on the couch,
it reminded me of 2008 when I also got the flu (without the happy go pukies).
Brie and I were driving home from work when I started feeling crappy. I
actually had to pull over on the Northway so she could finish driving home. We
briefly had to stop at Stewart’s and by this time I was cold and shaking. We
got home and Brie had to help me out of the car because I could barely walk.
Kitty saw Brie helping me and immediately came outside. “What did you do to
mom? Was there an accident? Why were you driving?” Brie answered, “I didn’t do
anything to her! She doesn’t feel well.” Kitty gave her sister a dirty look and
took my arm. “I’ll take care of you mom.” My teeth were chattering but I said, “Thank
you honey, I just need to lie down.”
By the time I got to my room my teeth were chattering
so hard I couldn’t talk. I was absolutely freezing and had never been so cold
in my life. When I got into bed I kept on my shoes, socks, pants, shirt, long
coat, hood and gloves. I had 2 comforters, a sheet and a blanket on and was
still freezing. When Brie lifted a tiny corner of my covers to ask me something
and a tiny wisp of air infiltrated my fortress, it set off more shaking and I
started to cry because it was so cold! Let’s not even talk about when I had to
use the bathroom: cold porcelain when you’re already feeling like you can’t
shake anymore. But you can!
It finally occurred to me that I had a fever and my
body was trying to “shake” it off: literally and figuratively. The girls fed me
Tylenol and worried. They even called Schmoop-Dog to take me to the hospital
but he said, “If she has the flu I don’t want to get it. I’m sure she’ll be
fine.” Just another reason why we never got married! The worrisome thing was my
normal body temperature is 96.8. So if I have a fever of 102, that’s like 104
for anyone else (at least that’s what I figure with my imaginary medical degree)
so it was no wonder I was having such a hard time.
Thankfully, with the ministrations of my daughters, I
felt better after a couple of days. And luckily they didn’t get it. Again, I
felt like I had been kicked by a mule, but that’s part of the territory. However,
it took a long time to get over Schmoop’s abandonment in my time of medical need!
And although my daughters were worried about me: they were thrilled that they
got to turn the heat up as high as they wanted, supposedly for me but we know
it was for them. Selfish: but I love them anyway!
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