Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Monday, September 21, 2009

The attack of the swine flu

While you suckers were out doing the usual shiftless weekend blah, we here at DarwinCatholic were doing groundbreaking medical research: we survived the swine flu.

"Really?" you gasp. Well. The doctor said that they weren't testing flu strains right now. But it might have been swine flu! It was definitely the flu at any rate. Fever cough chills nose eyes headache bodyache weepy fussy: that flu.

One by one, the children were overcome. This was not the style of flu in which everyone just slept for twelve hours at a stretch. Oh no. After industrial-strength doses of ibuprofen, the youngsters were raring to go, until the medicine wore off and there was total collapse. Judicious applications of Benadryl to treat the sniffles and the runny eyes ensured that each child got sufficient rest.

I already see different approaches to suffering in the children. The oldest moans and lows as if she were dying. The second gets weepy but tries to be stoic. The third curls up in a ball (a weepy ball) and looks bleary. The baby wants to nurse all the time. This we allow, because he is only just one, after all.

Darwin has been spared the ravages of sickness (so far) but I've come down with -- well, not the flu. There's no fever, but there the sore throat and the racking, rasping cough that makes the throat raw, and now, the lack of voice. That makes it tricky to yell across the house at the mostly-recovered children trying escape outside. It also wreaks havoc with our school schedule, because I can't really read aloud, and the kids are still just fractious enough that their attention spans are seriously low -- except for old cartoons on youtube, which they could watch until their brains run out of their ears.

5 comments:

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

It's okay for homeschoolers to take sick days.

In fact, in our family "Sick Day Tape Time" was a hallowed tradition. Normally we were pretty restrictive about the amount of time per day in which the kids were allowed to watch videos. But I always figured that when copious phlegm is running out the little noses and being hacked up from little lungs, it doesn't much matter if their brains are also running out their little ears.

Especially if I'm the one who is sick!

Amber said...

Well, that sounds exciting... I really felt my lack of attention to current events recently when we started back at Faith Formation at church. It took me two sessions before I figured out why there are bottles of hand sanitizer and sanitizer wipes on every table, and why everyone was being super cautious about cleaning stuff and keeping people from touching each other and the things at the table. At first I just thought that someone in charge had become OCD over the summer, but when everyone else was playing along so naturally I realized that perhaps I was missing something. I finally figured it out by the end of the second session - the dreaded Swine Flu!

I always find epidemiology interesting, and how it plays the individual against the herd. For the individual, it is probably best to get swine flu now, since if it mutates to something nastier you'll at least have some antibodies... but the more individuals it infects, the more likely it will recombine with something else and become a nastier version. But still, I have to wonder if all the obsessive wiping down with things that are 99.8% effective is really that great of a idea in the long run. But I figure I best not mention that at Faith Formation, or I might lose my much vaunted status as Table Catechist for table 2A. (yippee, a promotion from Table Helper - I feel so special)

I hope you all are totally over it soon!

Anonymous said...

Sympathy and prayers for all of you. Fever is a typical symptom of influenza, but occasionally does not present. No doubt you had the very same virus your children did, fever or no fever. From my experience during my own children's young years, I heartily advocate large doses of video, Thomas, Jay-jay, Barney, Zaboomafoo, and any others you can stand to hear in the house. One week won't irreparably harm anyone.
God bless.

Anonymous said...

glad u r on the rebound. don't be so fast to offer meds to reduce fever- it is natures way of killing off those virus' n germs.

CMinor said...

Hope you're feeling better soon!