I Fought the Flu and the Flu Lost

Well it seems that I managed to make it through the flu invasion of our home without contracting the bug, myself. I’m amazed; shocked, even. This episode turned out considerably milder than I expected, apparently thanks to the previously-received flu shots and timely prescription of Tamiflu.

An interesting thing about illness and children is that when they’re on medication, like Motrin to reduce fever, you’d never know they were sick. When the Motrin is in full effect, the kids talk, play, and do everything they’d normally do. But when the Motrin wears off, and the fever comes back, they are the most pathetic things you’ve ever seen. And when you have more than one kid ill at the same time, you must keep them on the same medication schedule. You don’t want to have one coming down while the other is going up.

In our case, Calfgrit7 started showing symptoms Thursday night. We took him to the doctor Friday noon. The doc gave us the prescription for Tamiflu for both boys — to reduce Calfgrit7’s symptoms, and to help prevent Calfgrit3 from getting any symptoms. As we were about to give them their first dose of the med Friday afternoon, Calfgrit3 had a fever of 102 degrees. As it turned out, Calfgrit7 had the most severe symptoms in the family, but the illness came and went relatively fast. Calfgrit3 had very mild symptoms, and they went away quickly.

Cowgrit had been stoically suffering for a couple days — she thought it was just a bad cold — and her doc said Tamiflu wouldn’t help someone who was already so far into the flu. So she had longer suffering, and it was worse than Calfgrit3, but not quite as bad as how Calfgrit7 suffered at his worst.

And then there was me. I washed my hands so many times a day I probably lost three layers of skin. I wouldn’t let Cowgrit touch me at all until yesterday — I had to keep a sterile field around me unless contact was absolutely necessary. I slept either on the guest bed or the sofa for three nights. Cowgrit commented that the next logical step would be for me to carry a can of Lysol and spray everyone who got close to me.

When you see three people suffering from a nasty illness, and you know that if you get it, it will probably strike you harder (because of no flu shot), it’ll bring out the religion in you. “Please, God, don’t let me catch this.” I’ll hug and kiss and love up on my family tomorrow to make up for the “helping at arm’s length” of this past weekend.

* * * updated * * *

Dammit, dammit, dammit! Within a couple hours of posting the above, I went down hill like a rollercoaster. I started feeling a little bad and discovered I had a fever. I immediately went to the local clinic (no time to wait for an appointment time with my regular doctor) to get checked out. The doc prescribed me Tamiflu, and if it works as well for me as it did for my boys, I should be better in a couple days. Right now, I feel like crap.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com