Flu Season
Posted on February 22, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet
“There’s a bad flu going around.”
Every year around this time, this tired refrain is dragged out from the closet and trumpeted for all to hear. It seems that every second person you bump into has a head cold, a chest cold, achy bones and some combination of vomiting and diarrhea. The emergency departments at most hospitals are overwhelmed with throngs of hacking and sneezing patients.
Is there anything worse than a sick child? The short answer is “yes”.
I was speaking with the mother of three young children the other day. She was the only one in the household who wasn’t sick. Her three children were in the throes of an awful flu. It was “coming out both ends”, as she put it. She was so tired of making multiple trips to various bedrooms that she finally opted to lay all of their mattresses side by side in the living room right next to the bathroom. The word “containment” comes to mind.
To add insult to injury, even the dog was under the weather and chose her bed in which to throw up.
And why hasn’t she gotten ill? She is too busy looking after everyone else and doesn’t have time to be sick.
If you’re a parent, this is all too familiar. Even though your children will drive you to the brink of insanity on a good day, when they are unwell you feel just a bit helpless.
And while the flu isn’t a pretty picture, there are other maladies that will challenge even the strongest woman.
The first time one of your children has croup is very scary indeed. It’s hard to describe the sounds coming from the depths of your child’s chest. You learn from experience that several minutes in the bathroom with the shower turned out creating lots of steam is one way to alleviate the spasms. Or, if it’s winter, just getting them out in the cold air sometimes does the trick.
And is there anything more traumatizing for a parent than a lice infestation at school? Your child, your perfect specimen, arrives home with a case of head lice. Even though you know that the little critters don’t discriminate, you can’t believe this has happened. You quickly learn the lice drill.
Is there anything worse than a sick child?
Sadly, the answer is yes. Speak to any woman and she will tell you that there is nothing more pathetic than watching a male in the throes of a “man cold”. Most women would rather deal with three kids vomiting and with diarrhea, who also happen to have lice, than listen to their husbands moan and groan about their cold. Nitpicking now seems like child’s play.
How can one human being be so miserable? Just ask him and he will tell you. Over and over again. A “man cold” still hasn’t been adequately defined but, safe to say, it is a very serious piece of business.
My wife long ago learned to tune me out when I started to exhibit symptoms of anything. These days I get handed the remote and she moves to the spare bed until I stop “sniveling”. If I’m lucky she’ll make some chicken soup – the cure for anything.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If a man complains about the flu and nobody is listening, is he really sick? It makes me wonder.
Comments