The Worst Flu Season in the History of Time

Mombie mode

I know I'm being dramatic, but seriously, can my family get a break?! I know people say once you have a kid, you'll get sick all the time, but this has gotten ridiculous. The whole family has been sick more than we've been healthy this flu season - including Nugget! In August we all got our flu shots like normal, but that didn't seem to help this year. In September, we all got a cold - from me, I'm sad to say. This was Vela's first experience being sick. Building her immune system is important, and she took it like a champ, so a part of me was happy this happened. We made it through our three week cold and I thought to myself, huh, that wasn't so bad, the whole family was sick and we handled it just fine. - Oh, you poor, naive, first-time mom.

 In October I got a family membership to the YMCA which includes free childcare while you workout. That was probably my first mistake, Vela has never been in a childcare setting in her 11 months at that point. How dare I try to exercise, I should have known. Day two in childcare and the never-ending runny nose begins. Toddlers really are walking, talking Petri-dishes. A few days before Thanksgiving, Matt came down with the flu - fever, chills, the works. There's never a good time to get the flu, but this was exceptionally bad timing. We were hosting Thanksgiving at our place, and Matt was making the majority of the food. Thanksgiving morning, we were both extremely exhausted from all the preparation, with a long day still ahead of us. Vela woke up early, crying, which is unusual for her. She had a mixture of yellow boogers and hair, caked on her face. Vela's under eyes were darker than normal (a trait she got from me, sorry Vela!) with a slight fever. Although she was miserable, Vela seemed to love Thanksgiving and ate all of her meal. The next day, I discovered Vela didn't enjoy her Thanksgiving meal as much as I previously thought. Nugget vomited stuffing several times the next day, in the exact form it was served in (chew Nugget, CHEW!). The stuffing was full of onions, which dogs can't digest especially a small dog like Nugget. He also needed to go outside every few hours, into the night. Between Nugget's food poisoning, Vela's flu, and Matt's man flu, I completely neglected my own personal hygiene. I made up a story in my head that went something like, I'm the only doctor within miles, that's immune to the plague. The stress of it all is wearing on my face, but I'm strong, resilient, a hero, and I must press on. Whatever works, am I right? But sadly, my inner monologue wasn't remotely accurate. I came down with the flu, just as everyone else was getting better. Having the flu with a toddler that's been cooped up in the house for nearly a week, is something I hope to never experience again (but I'm sure I will). No amount of Moana or Frozen could stop the crazy train that was Vela.

Steam session

Unfortunately, Vela seemed to take a turn for the worst. We took her to a doctor and found out she had a double ear infection, along with fluid in her lungs. This was her first experience with amoxicillin, (That bubble gum flavored syrup brought back memories) which I hate to use, but she'd been sick for almost a month at this point (it was three days before Christmas) and her body couldn't handle the infection on its own. By Christmas day, you could tell the medicine was kicking in. She seemed more like her happy, goofy self. It'd been so long since she'd been healthy, I'd forgotten what that looked like. This was the best day ever, I had my baby back and Santa brought me exactly what I wanted from Sephora for Christmas! Well, that lasted about two weeks because Vela brought home the stomach flu from the Y. A new first for us, dealing with projectile solid food vomit vs. spit ups. We were fortunate it was only vomiting for Vela, and she didn't seem to care about it anyway. She was more pissed off that she could eat for a while, which probably says more about her than anything. Sadly, just vomiting wasn't the case for Matt and me - yeah, we got the stomach flu two days later. We'd have to bring a bucket with us into the bathroom, in case we had explosions coming from both ends. We'd take turns napping on the bathroom floor, because we didn't have the energy to move, and the cold floor gave us relief on our clammy skin. We both felt near death, but by that night, nothing but slight weakness like our bodies were saying, "Did that really just happen?" - the medical definition of Viral Gastroenteritis (kidding, don't sue me).

"prison food"

I'm sure you're thinking, this is the conclusion of my rant, but sadly no - shit's about to go down, literally. A week ago, Vela came down with yet another stomach flu, but this one takes the cake. She had 10+ bowel movements a day, her diarrhea, which was complete water at first, changed to this mucusy consistency I've never seen before. Her diaper rash had gotten so bad, she had blood blisters that would bleed just from spraying water on her bottom. She would reach her arms out to me while sobbing like she wanted me to take the pain away, but there was nothing I could do. We brought her to urgent care, after two days with no end in sight. The urgent care doctor told us this could last for TEN DAYS and to keep doing what we're doing, stick to a bland diet (or what Matt refers to, as "prison food"), and let her bottom air out as much as possible. Well, we took the airing out her bottom part to heart. We lined our living room floor with blankets, and only put a diaper on her for naps and bedtime.This seemed to help, but the random spurts of walking diarrhea are something I can live without. Last night, while I grabbed Vela's Tylenol and toothbrush for bedtime, Vela pooped in the middle of her bedroom (where the floors aren't lined with blankets). I walked in on her standing over her pile of poop, while she swirled it around with a toy fork. She only cried, because I took the fork away, so she must be feeling better. Sleeping has become an issue for all of us; every time Vela pees in the middle of the night, it burns her butt and she screams bloody murder and can't go back to sleep. Her schedule is so whacked out, once this comes to an end, this might be the time to transition her to one nap a day (silver lining?).

Blanket floor

Now that this round of stomach flu seems to be coming to an end (knock on wood). We've decided to keep her home from childcare for the rest of the month. When we brought her into urgent care, the doctor said this had been the worst flu season he could remember since the H1N1 virus was at its peak in 2009. Looks like I wasn't as dramatic as I thought! Knowing our luck, this won't be the end of it. I'll just have to be a hermit for the next few weeks and work on my blog.

Any of you having a tough flu season? I'd like to hear about in the comments below! Maybe we can exchange poo stories, because you know I have a ton more.