The Flu is No Joke

I can't believe it has been three months since I posted. I have treated Cavener News like an unloved abandoned blog, and that's not right! Jill has been asking to me to tell her stories about her as a baby and I am so glad that I will have the blog to show her. I must keep it up!

Last week was a tough one. On Tuesday morning, Jill woke up complaining that she had "a fever in my bones, a fever in my chest." But she seemed fine. She didn't have a fever, a runny nose, or a cough. Though at one point she coughed the world's tiniest cough and looked at me wide-eyed, clutching her chest. She flipped out and didn't want to go to school. Bryan and I debated it, and I let her stay home.

Boy, am I glad that I listened to my girl, because 24 hours later she was flat out with a croupy cough and a fever of 104.6. The kids (and Bryan for that matter) each have a unique modus operandi when it comes to sickness. Jill gets a high fever and lies immobile, refusing food and drink until the sickness passes. I went to Target for medicine and supplies but Jill refused the popsicles, sherbet, gatorade, chicken soup, strawberry pediasure, and myriad kiddie comfort foods I offered. What she did want, however, was the pistachio gelato I had bought for myself--go figure! Really, she didn't want more than a couple of bites of that either. Eventually, I got her to drink a cup of juice by pretending she was a baby bird and giving it to her one dropper at a time. :(

By Thursday, Peter was starting to feel bad too and by Friday he was terribly ill. And when Peter is sick, Peter pukes. By 10:00 AM, he and I had changed clothes three times. The last time, I seated him on a stool in the bathroom while I put him in new footie jammies. His little shoulders started to shiver so I held him in my lap to warm him. Soon I felt the small twitches and heaviness of his sleeping body. At two and a half Peter still has such a sweet soft baby quality about him. Lucky for me!

Later on Friday afternoon, Peter accepted some of that Tylenol and pediasure and it might as well have been firewater in his veins! He was off, galloping and playing with his trains.

Finally, on Saturday and Sunday Bryan went down like a ton of bricks, and that was a wrap for the Cavener flu experience of 2011. Six days of quarantine, four feverish family members, many loads of terrible laundry, and a lost week of half marathon training. Thanks a lot, flu, I wish I never knew ya! I am so glad to have my healthy family back.

One more note, the doctor prescribed Tamiflu for the kids. It tasted awful and Jill hated taking it. She really put up a fight. On the last day of her prescription, she said, "This medicine is yucky! But it's not as bad as the yucky medicine that made Nana's hair fall out. I'm really glad Nana's hair grew back." I'm proud that at not quite 5 years old, and even in sick and cranky moment, Jill had that compassion and perspective. God bless her.