To Go, Or Not To Go? When The Sickness Strikes

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After a week like our family just had, the title above has so many meanings behind it. You see, our household was struck down with the sickness over the past several days. The sickness that hops from belly to belly and does not stop until everyone has had it.

It started last Friday night in the evening with Harry, then it moved to Charlie, then in moved to Katie, and finally it got to me. I did my best to avoid it, but when you are the one on cleanup detail, how are you supposed to hide?

That meant every day turned into, making the tough call on who was going to school and work and who wasn’t. It’s always hard for parents to make this choice. While on one hand, it’s your kids and if they are sick, they stay home. But then all the other factors weigh heavily on your brain. Can I work from home? What will I miss at work? But we were supposed to do thing A or thing B today. Will Harry fall behind on his Kumon? What the hell are we going to do all day sitting at home being miserable?

Monday we all toughed it out. This was where Katie and I thought we were going to miss out. The boys just had a quick weekend bug right? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I got called Monday afternoon at work. Charlie was down for the count, just lying on the floor at daycare under a blanket. Okay, he made it almost all day, not bad.

I raced home to get the car to go get him, but I went to pick up Harry first. First thing, one of his after school teachers said they were about to call me as well because Harry said his tummy hurt. Great.

So I figured we would just get home and call it a day.

We got in the car to drive literally 10 seconds to get Charlie and all it took was one turned corner and Harry unleashed fury in the back seat, or in this case, his lunch.

Three very violent and loud throw ups all over himself. There was not much he could do, I was driving and he was strapped in. It was so smelly, I was thankful to be out of the car to get Charlie. While I was inside, Harry had one more purge on the curb out the car door. Man I have not seen a kid be that sick before.

When I went in to get Charlie, he looked awful. So I packed him up, got him in the car and attended to cleaning up the other guy. Mental note, start keeping a cleanup kit in the car.

I felt like I was in that scene from Pulp Fiction where they had to clean up the brain in the back seat.

So we were all cleaned up (sort of), buckled up and headed home. We made it the few kilometers home without any other incident and went inside.
Katie was not home yet, so it was a bit chaotic. I got the boys cleaned up and into jams and settled on the couch. Then I went back to finished cleaning puke out of the car in the dark. It was a scene.

All I thought was, I guess I don’t need to worry much about dinner.

Katie got home. The adults had a small dinner. The kids watched way too much TV and melted into the couch. Maybe the worst had passed?
Nope. Tuesday, Katie was added to the sick list.

Harry was clearly still green so it was pretty easy to keep him home. Katie was going to stay home sick as well. That made it easy. I would go to work and drop Charlie off on the way.

Or so I thought. We got about half way before Charlie started saying his tummy hurt. Awesome. We turned back and it was decided Charlie would stay home too. Now that made it complicated. Katie was in no state to deal with both kids. Good thing I had my computer with me. I worked from home. Or at least I tried. Now I did get quite a bit done but it was not as easy as being at my desk at work.

There was a constant call for help. The morning was not bad as everyone slept. I was doing my best to just park the kids in front of the TV all day, and I made it until after what we would call lunch.

At this point in the week I had seen, heard, smelled and even touched waaaaay too much ick. There was no way I would get out of this healthy.
Harry, Charlie and Katie spend the day sleeping and trying to get better. Kumon was a no go. Everyone got to bed at a decent time and we decided to see how everyone was Wednesday.

Sure enough. I woke up feeling gross. The boys seemed better and Katie also seemed better. She had to leave town for some meetings, so I think she just willed herself better as parents tend to do.

I also tried to push myself out the door to work. I got as far as being dressed and walking the kids to school. But that was it. It started going downhill fast. The chills, the fear of being far from a bathroom and just wanting a break from the endless sickness of the week.

Everyone was gone. I was home alone and I called in sick. At least I would get to rest.

By the time I took care of some work emails and other house duties, I was getting ready to park it on the couch for a while.

Then Harry’s school called. It was Harry in the office. He was feeling sick again. Okay, I will be there in sec. I walked down to the school to get him and there he was, sitting in the office holding a garbage can.

I guess a lot of kids were also either home or going home due to being sick.

We went home, I got some lunch into him and he slept for a few hours. Me? Well I finally got to relax on the couch and hide under a blanket.

Once we were all awake, it was a pretty lazy afternoon. The good news was, Charlie was fine and back to his old tricks. Katie was home from her work trip and it looked like we were going to get out of this sickness thing alive.

Thursday, we all went to where we were supposed to. Imagine that. No calls from school. No missing work. But I don’t think we are all better.
Even today (Friday), there have been false alarm runs to the bathroom, food not being eaten and a general “green” look to faces. We are not better!
The pep talk before we all left the house was the weekend is near, let’s just get there and we can survive.

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