So, how's the barfing at your house? What about the sore throat, muscle aches, fevers, and headaches?
If you've been spared any of the above this season you're luckier than anyone I've talked to recently. Either that or it's just lurking somewhere outside your door, building up momentum for the big hit.
The flu monster knocked down our door yesterday afternoon. Technically, it hit the remote control on the minivan power sliding side door and climbed inside.
“Mom, my head is killing me. I need ibuprofen. And my chest hurts. And my throat feels worse than it did this morning. Can you turn the air conditioning on full blast back here? I'm burning up.”
Having my son home sick as a teenager paints a vastly different picture than having him home sick as a young child.
As a baby, he had perpetual ear infections. I don't know who screamed more and slept less — him or me. For his first birthday he got a set of ear tubes and we finally learned what more than two hours of sleep at a stretch felt like. He was like a whole new child. We were happy. Rested.
Then he hit the elementary school age years. The doctors kept calling them Upper Respiratory Infections. The allergist called it a sinus infection. The kid ate antibiotics like candy and became quite proficient at coughing himself into barfing fits. I became proficient in functioning on very little sleep, changing sheets at midnight and writing school excuse notes.
Finally, five pediatricians later, Dr. Mary took one listen to our son, threw him on a nebulizer and introduced us to the wide wonderful world of asthma. The poor child had been misdiagnosed and mistreated for years. Now he could be treated properly and get back to living an active little boy life.
Missing school in the elementary years meant a minor backlog of class work and maybe a missed indoor soccer game, but nothing earth-shattering. Now with high school fast approaching, grades “counting” and baseball tryouts on the line, getting sick gets a little more complicated.
Some things about being sick, however, don't change. When the toddler ailments hit, I learned very quickly that children's pain reliever/fever reducers weren't necessarily a good thing. When I let the fever ride itself out, my little red cheeked cherub cuddled on the couch with his blankie, sippie cup, and me — the greatest living being in the universe. According to the feverish mind, I outranked the dog, Batman, and Barney combined.
When I gave my son acetaminophen, his fever broke. For the next three hours, my “sick” little cherub danced on the tables, ran matchbox cars up the walls, and measured my worth according to how many times in a row I read the Golden Book edition of Bambi without skipping pages.
A decade later, I relearned this: Fever? Good. Acetaminophen? Bad. Give the kid a couple little tablets and in no time he transforms from a couch ridden, shivering, mumbling lump under six blankets to a couch ridden, chipper, chatty, TV remote clicking lump under two blankets. (And yes, Norma, he's hungry.)
So this morning, when my big boy woke up once again spiking 101, I poured more Gatorade, tucked the blanket under his chin, enjoyed a rare snuggle and hid the Tylenol. It's been a very quiet day.
Karen Rinehart is a magazine humor columnist, public speaker and the creator of The Bus Stop Mommies, a newspaper. She is also author of Invisible Underwear, Bus Stop Mommies and Other Things True To Life. You can read more of her work at karenrinehart.net. Karen lives in Concord, North Carolina with her two kids, one husband and goofball dog, where they attend St. James Catholic Church. (Well, they leave the dog at home.) She enjoys hearing from readers across the States and as far away as Australia, Japan and England.
