Stomach Blog

You read that right.  Stomach BLOG... but it is about stomach bugs.  I just couldn't think of a catchier title  so I rolled with it.  In keeping with the theme, this blog will roll like a bug.  Once it starts, you can't stop it and there's no relief except to get to the other end...

Dot (which, henceforth, is how I shall refer to The Daughter) is in elementary school.  The elementary school is an incubator - Bioterror Central.  One kid is released into gen-pop with some sort of ailment and within minutes, the tri-county area is dropping like dead, putrid flies. 

This is the case, most recently, in our area.  Some sort of wicked stomach bug has been making the rounds.  This thing is Satan-spawn, turning our loved ones into Reagan from the Exorcist - hurling gallons of frothy puke from gray, crusty faces.   Nothing scares me more than a stomach bug.  Bring on the H1N1.  I laugh at Strep.  Screw you, ear infections!!  You can take a pill or an elixir to ease the symptoms of nearly any other school-borne illness.  But you're shit outta luck if you contract a lower GI "thing" (pun fully intended).  If I just READ about the stomach bug, I swear I start to feel the symptoms immediately.  It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And then the barrage of Facebook updates begin:  Vomit on the bus, vomit while disembarking the bus, vomit in the lunchroom, nurse's office flooded with vomit, vomit in the hallways.  It reads like a terrifying headline, "Hartsfield Jackson International Airport Shuts Down as Train Fills With Vomit, Trapping Passengers".

I can't get away from it!  Then... it's IN MY HOUSE!!!!  The husband has it and is expelling it, repeatedly, from every possible escape route.  I break out into a cold sweat.  "Oh God!  It's here.  Did I drink from his cup?  When did I kiss him last?  Has he shared food with Dot???"  I alert the appropriate authorities (Facebook, Twitter, my parents, his personal trainer) and then go about the business of retracing his steps throughout the house while spraying every possible surface with Lysol, rubbing alcohol, and Clorox.  I briefly consider setting the bed on fire, but he's still in it... and it's a descent bed (a Sleep Number).  I settle on bleaching the sheets, instead.  Then I watch Dot like a hawk and pray.  A LOT. 

Every time Dot goes to the bathroom, I appear from around the corner, "Do you have diarrhea?  ANSWER ME!  DO YOU????" 

When she's done eating, "WHY?  How's your belly?  Do you feel like you're going to throw up???" 

If my own belly stirs ever so slightly, I think, "Game on."

I (sort of) recognize my neurosis, but I can't explain why it sends me running for a sealed room at the CDC.  Am I the only one like this?  Do you just ignore the reports and then weather the storm?  Or will I have to trip you to get to the sealed room before you?


I would like to take this opportunity to make a Public Service Announcement:  If your child has a fever (even if only low-grade), yakked, or spewed liquid from their butt with the last 24 hours; it is NOT acceptable to cram an ibuprofen chewable down their gullet, tape the orifices closed, and send them trotting into school!  If I ever learn that you did that; I will knock on your front door, vomit into your foyer, and walk away.  You have been forewarned.