Wednesday, February 02, 2011

When the plague strikes

Well. This has been a splendid week so far. Monday started off just fine, just another day, off we go, working, la la la…

By 4:00, I was so thoroughly wretched that I was beginning to wonder if I was even going to make it home; only the fact that really, I didn’t have a whole lot of other options got me through that homeward journey.

And Monday night was even more wretched. My “usual” night time back pain was intensified by what I can only presume is the flu; I spent the whole night with my back cramping up, throbbing, and otherwise feeling like there was a thirty pound monster chewing on it.

Here we are at the end of Wednesday, and while in some ways I’m definitely much better…I’m still going to be working from home tomorrow, because I’m still feverish and coughing and ugh.

…and I’m not alone…

Today, I had three of the four kids home sick with me. Two of them are either not-really sick or not-very sick, but Captain Adventure has been laid out with this thing.

A couple hours ago, he wandered into my office and stood there staring at me for a long moment.

“What’s up, buddy?” I asked, looking up from my oh-so-important view testing.

“Iiiiiiiiiiii…welllllllllllll…I wannit to be unsick now,” he announced.

And then waited.

For me to…do something.

Oh, man…!

About every half hour since then, he has sought me out to announce that he is still not unsick.

And there’s really nothing I can do about it, other than to gather him up onto my lap and rock him, saying all those inane things you say to small children who find themselves bewildered by these sorts of things. …I know, it’s not fair, it’s no fun being sick…that’s my good boy, poor baby, sweet heart…

Nothing else to be done, really; when medicine doesn’t work, the only thing left is touching, cradling, crooning and loving.

…and wishing that one could buy “unsick” in convenient tablet form at your local pharmacy…

2 comments:

Tola said...

no, but you can get some kick-ass cough medicine in Ireland! after having what i call a level 2 cough for 10 days, i got better amazingly fast on this stuff. you can bet ill be wrapping the glass (!) bottle very carefully and taking it back to the States! get well soon. and did you see the birthday greeting Mike sent to you on FB?

Steph B said...

Man, that stinks. It's rough when everybody's miserable at once, especially when you still have young ones. Mine are old enough now to survive on their own while I decide if I want to live or not - a HUGE blessing, let me tell you! Try to get some rest (I know, easier said than done) and I sure hope all of you feel better soon.