It appears the Swine has landed at my house. It started innocently enough with a call from the school nurse that Georgie was in her office threatening to throw up. Now, I know my kid and know that him saying he is going to throw up is code for “I want to go home”. He never throws up and, on the rare occasion that he does, he certainly doesn’t give me any warning beforehand. Since I was literally unable to walk (or sit, or stand or, for that matter, move) that morning due to a bitch of a battle with sciatica, I asked the nurse to have him hang with her for fifteen minutes or so to see if the urge passed. When I told him I couldn’t even walk, he gently responded, “you don’t have to walk to get me…you can drive.” Clearly he didn’t get it.
Later that day I got a call from his extended day program. This time the message was that “Georgie just didn’t want to be there” which is what I implored him to say lest he becomes the boy who cried wolf visa vie barfing. (I prefer “barfing” to “puking”, “hurling”, “gooching” or “vomiting”. Actually, I hate them all, but in terms of semantics, well, there you have it.) Still crippled, I sensed that perhaps he was so tired he needed to come home, but still assumed he was fine.
And he was. Until 3:30 the following morning when he woke up coughing his brains out and sporting a hefty fever of 101.7 Damn. We Motrined him to within an inch of his sixty pounds, tucked him back in bed and shut off the morning alarm clock. (What was the sense of getting up in the morning if we didn’t have to?) Once the fog had cleared and I had Motrined myself to within an inch of my-(yeah, like I’d fill in my pounds here) self I called the pediatrician to see if they wanted to see him. (Do they ever really want to see a sick kid?) In fact, they did and off he and Rich went.
As I was crawling out the door to go to the acupuncturist (ahhh) they arrived home. Walking in the door, Georgie announced to me that he had puked (his word, not mine) on the floor at the doc’s office. I have never been so happy to have been incapacitated. The only thing worse that a barfing child is one who does it on the floor, out in public and is alone with me. Diagnosis: flu like symptoms, could be Swine, but they are no longer testing. Crap.
We all slept through the night last night. When he first woke up, he immediately took his own temperature (QOD: is that odd?) and was a very acceptable 99.1. Cool – that was fast. And it was. Until noon when it soared back up to 102.3 and threats of puking (again, his word, not mine) rang through the house. Rich supplied a large plastic bowl and Georgie dragged it around the house like Linus with his blanket. Alas, no more barfing and Motrin knocked the fever back down right up to the time of this writing. This, it appears, is the course of this flu – two days, up and down fever and then its just a story.
But the story doesn’t end there. Due to a rampant run of Swine at our school, they have strictly enacted a seven day rule: no child or teacher can return to school until seven days after the onset of symptoms. Are you kidding me?? The only thing worse than being home with a sick child is being home with a healthy one who isn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything!
And that still is not the end of the story. Harrison, who has spent the past week exploring Washington, DC with his graduating eighth grade class (a trip that literally hung in the balance until noon on Friday before a Monday departure because of the infestation of Swine at school) is due home tomorrow. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I am praying that he doesn’t get it before Wednesday because then he would be banned from graduation and, faithful readers may recall that he missed his Religious School Graduation last year because of his bleb episode.
So, let’s all gather round and pray that nothing else befalls our house this week — no more Swine, bad backs or bad attitudes allowed…
