Ah...the Irony

Sunday was an enjoyable evening. Steve and I put Sydney to bed, got ready for Monday, and crawled in to bed that night. The weekend was more relaxing than I had anticipated and I was awaiting having Monday to myself (I had taken a mental health day...).

Then, the boom dropped.

3:53 am, I awaken and go to use the bathroom. Now, allow me to digress for a moment here to explain the irony. We, as a society, as a nation, follow the advice of our leaders regarding health issues - sometimes more than we should, and sometimes not enough to keep the USA from getting laughed at by other countries. We've feared the Avian flu, the Swine flu, the seasonal flu and we get vaccines for these and more. Now, I'm still a little skeptical of the swine flu vaccine, but I work in a school and have an infant who was too young to get the vaccine, so I got it.

But here's the kicker. In the midst of all these flues, scares, and extra squirts of hand sanitizer, what does the entire valley seem to contract? The stomach flu.

Back to 3:53 am. I will refrain from unnecessary details, but suffice it to say that my mental health day was shot. I haven't been this ill or weak since Steve and I were given a delightful Christmas gift called food poisoning about 8 years ago. And for those of you daft enough to still claim it was not food poisoning, here's the clue: 17 people do NOT all get the seasonal flu at once. It was bad ham, and that's all there is to say about that.

So we fear the H1N1, the Avian flu, the foot-mouth disease; we stop eating beef, pork, chicken. We carry bottles of alcohol around and use it before and after and during everything we do, and yet the regular, typical stomach flu lays us flat. I've heard from doctors in the area that the recent epidemic is the largest the valley has seen in a while.

Steve stayed home yesterday to help me and to care for Sydney, since we didn't want to take him to a sitter and possibly spread this further. After it all seemed to run its course, I came down with a fever, and Steve, exhausted and wonderful that he is, used Clorox Cleanup on every surface that we touch - phones, remotes, door handles, handle-rails, even the oven door. Everything. I cannot express enough how I hope we eradicated the germ from our home. It would be one thing to pass it on to Steve. It would suck, but we'd pull through. But I can't imagine, cannot fathom how bad it would be, to pass it on to an infant who cannot even sit up by himself completely yet. Oiy vey. Only time will tell.