Stomach Flu: Shudder and Cringe

Today is one of those lost days. Matthew was up all night throwing up--poor kid. Nathan woke up this morning with it coming out the other end but no puking yet (knock on wood and cross my fingers, he's usually pretty susceptible to that). Brian left to go bag himself that elk he's been trying to find all year (ok, for several years--he's never killed an animal larger than a bunny and he really needs to get it out of his system so we can all move on...). He was up all night with Matthew, bless him, so he left with my blessing this morning but Nathan hadn't woken up sick yet... Maggie having come down with the stomach flu all over Grandma Swings' car on Saturday (poor Grandma) is no longer sick, thank goodness, but her usual cranky, demanding two-year old self.

It's now 2:00 in the afternoon and I have accomplished the following:

1. nap on the couch while the kids watched Nogin
2. taken Maggie to "pee toy-yet" several times
3. fixed a nutritious sick-day lunch of ramen and applesauce and handed juice and Gatorade all around
4. moved Matthew's soiled bedding to the dryer and folded about 5 articles of clothing (I gave up doing any more laundry when Maggie threw herself to the ground demanding someone watch Dora with her--it just wasn't worth the fight today.)
5. took a shower and got dressed

That fifth item, that was a major accomplishment, trust me. I had planned to spend the day baking Christmas treats, but I think I'd better wait and let the germs dissipate first. And in the back of my mind all the time is the nagging worry that I'm going to come down with this... Visions of last Christmas, nightmares of last Christmas, keep floating unbidden into my head...

Christmas Eve I developed a sore throat that got progressively worse as the day went on. By the early morning it was so incredibly painful that I couldn't sleep. And then I became violently ill. I don't mean a little sick and then it's over, I mean so violently ill that I literally couldn't move from the bucket (and after that the toilet) for over an hour. Just when I began to think this might really be the end of my life, it finally started to ease off.

I missed Christmas morning. I dragged a blanket to the top of the stairs, laid on the floor and listened to my family discovering gifts from Santa and opening presents. I dared not move any farther from that bathroom and I was too weak, anyway.

Gradually, I recovered my appetite and strength throughout the next couple of days. But one week later, to the day, I came down with it again. Painfully sore throat and then the violent illness the next day... I recovered again just in time to come down with it again 4 days later, the most violent episode of all this time. I managed to drag myself to an inept Tooele doctor after the third episode because by this time I had lost 10 pounds which I really couldn't afford to lose. He told me to eat a restricted diet and gave me a stool sample kit to use in case it came back.

It came back. Exactly a week after the last episode I had the sore throat and the illness again--weird, isn't it? That stool sample kit was...something I hope I never have to go through again. I was suspecting parasites, like giardia, but the tests came back negative and I never had another episode. I still think it was probably giardia, apparently it can be very difficult to detect.

Oh, I have never been so ill in my life. And now whenever I get a sore throat or someone starts throwing up, I start to panic a little bit inside...