The Flu ~2014

If you are queasy reading about the flu going through a house with 5 kids, I'd skip this post.  Consider yourself warned. :)
 

Also, this post will be sans pictures... I'm pretty sure you don't want to see the sick rosie cheeks and buckets scattered about the living room.

your welcome.

It started with Keturah on Tuesday evening, but we didn't realize it was the flu.  At the time we thought she threw up due to a coughing fit.  She had a yucky cough for a few days, seemed like a logical explanation to us.  No fever, and she was perfectly happy.

Fast forward to Thursday.  I woke up and walked into the kitchen.  Joseph was already finished with his English for the day and half way through his math!  Awesome start to the day!!

Sadly it went downhill from there.

I had made waffles the night before so I just needed to pop them in the toaster for breakfast.  I was working on that but I was insanely thirsty.  I had started to make myself a cup of hot tea but I couldn't wait, I needed a drink. So I poured myself a cup of juice.  I was feeling worse by the second but I wanted to get the kids their breakfast.  I got as far as a second batch of waffles in the toaster when I had to run out of the room.

I hate getting sick.  So I sat on the bathroom floor (wishing the bathroom could smell like vanilla extract).  Mind over matter and I didn't get sick, but I did crawl back into bed. 

The kids put a movie on and Keturah spent her time going back and forth between cuddling with me and hanging out with the big kids.  After awhile she stayed with me and we napped.  We woke up and moved to the couch.  It was exhausting just walking down the hall.  I emailed Roger to let him know that I was miserable and if he could possibly come home, I really needed him to make that happen.

Of course, I was emailing him from Nehemiah's Kindle... I couldn't remember his work email and I just had to hope that he would check his regular email SOON.  (he usually checks it while on his lunch break.) (I had to wait awhile for it to be lunch.) :(

Roger called and talked Joseph through making some pb&j for everyone (Note: Joseph didn't really need much hand holding in the pb&j process, Roger just didn't know what we had at home that Joseph could make.  We don't often have pb&j, so having bread in the house isn't the norm for us.  Thankfully we did this week.)  So I continued to rest while Joseph and the other kids ate lunch.

I didn't know it at the time, but Hannah had 1 bite of her sandwich and about 2 potato chips.  She rested after lunch.  (the resting part I did know about) :)

Roger came home at 2:30 (two and a half hours early).  Within 2 hours of his arrival, Hannah, Nehemiah, and Joseph got sick.  Poor Roger.  He was cleaning up after each kid and doing loads of laundry because the kids always seemed to get sick on their quilts that they were cuddled up with.  So much for the buckets. 

We thought that maybe Adaiah was going to skip out on the nasty stomach bug... but alas, minutes after being tucked in, it was her turn.

So Roger spent the night on the couch.  The older 3 were sleeping, I'd say soundly but that would be a lie.  They woke often saying "can I have a drink?!"  and Roger would say "No! not yet, go back to bed!" (they couldn't even keep a sip of water down.  We needed their stomachs to rest, so no liquids for a few hours.  Then they could have ice chips.  Then on to small sips of water.  I don't know how other people deal with this kind of thing, but that's how it works for us.)  While he was sending thirsty children back to bed, he was also cleaning up after Adaiah who was having a rough night.  She stayed in the living room with Roger.

By morning, stomachs were stronger and the boys were even hungry!  I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.  My entire body ached.  Not in a flu-like ache, but with a stiffness that I can only explain as, well, like being hit by a truck.  Note, I've never actually been hit by a truck, but I imagine if it didn't kill me, how I felt on Friday would compare.  :)

To make a long story a smidgen shorter, it is Monday night and we are for the most part back to normal.  The boys were back to their normal selves within 24 hours of getting sick.  The girls are still working on it.  Adaiah seems to be the slowest to recover.  I'm questioning if this was really the flu or if it was the stomach bug, or if it was some kind of crazy combination of evil that entered our house.

Whatever it was, I'm glad it's gone.  

I spent the weekend sanitizing everything I could in the house.  My kitchen is clean and I don't even have company coming to see it! :)

And thus concludes The Flu ~ 2014.