Plague House

This has been a bad winter for illness in Chicago, and up until now, we have mostly been immune to it. Other than one set of colds early on, and Ethan’s Christmas illness, the kids have mainly stayed pretty healthy this year. 

Until last week. [Warning — if you have a delicate stomach you may not want to read on.]

It started on Thursday night, when Veronica walked in the door from Ethan’s swimming class and immediately told me her stomach hurt. I, being in the middle of cooking dinner, told her to go take off her boots and sit on the couch and I would be out in a few minutes. At the dinner table, she didn’t take a single bite (and it was pasta — and easy favorite), so I took her out to the couch and we snuggled while I rubbed her tummy.

She was happily chatting away on my lap, when suddenly … urp. She threw up all over herself (and me). “What was that?” was basically her response. “You threw up honey. That’s probably why your tummy hurt.” 

After getting her changed into her pjs, she started playing until bedtime (really, just a 15 minute gap there). She went to sleep just fine. For about 45 minutes. Then she threw up again. And again. And again. For the next 9.5 hours.  (We moved Colin into our bedroom so he could sleep.) 

Veronica’s sickbed style was this: thrash, thrash, thrash. “Mommy I going to throw up.” Sit up. Throw up into towel/cloth diaper (she wouldn’t have anything to do with a bucket). Pick up chatting where we left off. Until the stretch where she was getting sick every 15 minutes, she was just a cheerful little chatterbox. 

Next morning, her stomach was fine, but she had a sore throat and a bit of a fever. 

I felt queasy on Friday, so stayed home. The last thing I wanted was to get downtown and start getting sick. How on Earth would I get home?

Saturday morning, Ethan woke up and said he wasn’t feeling super good. He came down and ate breakfast as usual. Then he and Colin spent some time playing with Matchbox cars while I tried to get Veronica to take a nap (at her request). We gave up the nap when Colin started howling because Ethan put him in timeout for trying to eat the wheels off the Matchbox cars. (Really Colin? Do you have to destroy everything you touch?)

Suddenly Ethan was howling that he thought he was going to get sick. “Well then get into the bathroom and do it!” I’m such a caring Mom. 

So now I’ve got two sick kids and one totally wound up boy with zero empathy. And John was at the park registering Ethan for swimming. 

Ethan is the WORST sick person in the world. I am not exaggerating. The Worst. His illness mirrored Veronica’s, and while she stayed happy throughout for the most part, Ethan wailed. Constantly. At the top of his lungs. At the height of it, he was screaming, “Someone is trying to kill me. I think someone is trying to kill us all.” 

We were impressed that Colin seemed to have dodged the bullet. But we were impressed too soon. My mid afternoon, he was throwing up too. Apparently he was driving his truck along the side of the big bed in their room, when suddenly … urp. He didn’t really seem to miss a beat, and kept on driving. 

So Veronica is a chatty sick patient, Ethan thinks someone is trying to kill him and Colin barely takes note of it. Hmm … 

Colin didn’t want to use the towel method that Veronica preferred, so he got a bucket (less laundry for Mommy and Daddy that way). The problem was, when he was throwing up he would stick his head so far into the bucket that his face was very nearly in the mess. By 5:30, Colin had crawled into bed and covered himself up and told John he was ready to go to sleep for the night. 

He only got sick one more time, so he suffered the lightest hit. But he woke up at 10:00 and was thirsty and was VERY angry that I would only let him take a few sips. He got a few more at 10:15, and a few more at 10:45, at which point I gave in and figured that if he hadn’t gotten sick from the water at that point, he wouldn’t. So between 10:00 and 5:30 the next morning, he drank a water bottle and a half of water, plus a large sippy cup of juice. And he still woke up thirsty. 

Ethan made a full recovery the fastest, and was fine by Sunday afternoon. Both Colin and Veronica continue to have very little appetite (although last night Colin reversed that — thank goodness) and obviously aren’t fully recovered. I am completely wiped out. Between not feeling well myself, and caring for three sick kiddos (all night long) … 

And the laundry. The mountains of laundry. And our dryer broke in the middle of a load on Friday morning. (Fortunately, it is still under warranty, and Sears had an opening on their service schedule that afternoon, so we were back up and running after dinner.) I’m just now getting caught up. 

I hope this is the last plague of the season. Ugh.