What it Takes for a Mom to Earn a Sick Day

I got the stomach flu last week.

Better said, the stomach flu got me.

I woke up at 1:00 AM Thursday morning, surrounded by little bodies, and I could tell by the sudden rolling nausea that this would not be a good night for co-sleeping. With quiet tip-toes and many prayers, I got Teyla and Kieran situated in their own beds and returned to mine to await my fate.

By 1:30, that fate arrived, and I found myself getting a close-up view of our new toilets. Shaky and sweating, I climbed back into bed, hoping my stomach would settle down now and let me sleep.

I slept. Fifteen minutes later, the nausea roared back. And once again, I found myself lying on the cold floor of our bathroom, face pressed into the tile, my head swirling and my body bereft of all fluid.

And so it went. Every 30 minutes, I would stagger from my bed to the bathroom. A couple of times, I passed out before I made it there. I had no earthly idea how my body managed to keep up this grotesque parade. I mean, I hadn’t even eaten that much the day before. Was it somehow managing to reach back into time to meals from past weeks and resurrect them so the virus would have something to do?

Oh. And did I mention Corey was in Washington, DC at the time? He was. So when Kieran got up at 5:00 and wanted to nurse and be cuddled by Mom, I could only oblige him for 15 minutes before I was called away to heave into the toilet. (I stumbled out of the bathroom to find him crawling onto my nightstand, the better to get to my clock. Oy.)

Corey, to his never-ending credit, got my desperate texts when he got up at 6:00 AM for a breakfast meeting. He immediately called Delta and got on the next flight home. Natalie, bless her heart, held down the fort until he arrived at 11:30. (Read: My nine-year-old daughter took care of me and her three younger siblings all morning while I lay comatose in bed. At first, she was devastated when I croaked out that I was too sick to take her to school. The girl hates make-up homework. But she pulled through, and a few times, in my fevered haze, I saw her tip-toe into my room to place a garbage can near my bed or to refill my water bottle. She even got Kieran to take a nap all by herself. She was truly an angel to me that morning.)

(Although there was that time she asked me if there was anything she could do, and I wondered unintelligibly if she could dig up a bottle of Gatorade or Vitamin Water for me from the fridge in the garage. "I'm not really sure where it is," I said, eyes closed, voice raspy from dehydration. "But it might be on the bottom shelf? On the door? It's colored, like Kool-Aid." And ten minutes later, she came back holding a bottle of Cabernet. "Is this it, Mommy?")

I heard Corey arrive mid-morning, because I heard his deep voice and I heard the kids excitedly telling him all of their adventures. I vaguely remember him coming in to check on me. (I was no longer throwing up, but I was working on holding down 2 tablespoons of water at the time, which took all my focus.) Otherwise, I remember nothing from the rest of that day. I slept, on and off, until 7:00 PM, when Corey helped me walk out to the kitchen so I could sit with the kids and him while they ate Burger Time. By 7:25, I could no longer stay upright, so I returned to bed and slept until the next afternoon.

And even then, my bones ached and my energy was shot and I had to take a two-hour nap after sitting in a chair for 30 minutes.

It. Was. Yucky.

(Aren’t you glad you clicked over to my blog today?)

Thankfully, I’m better now. Even more thankfully, no one else in our family got sick. It was just me and one day of the worst virus I’ve had in 20 years. But it’s over now, and thanks to Corey, I even got a real sick day for the first time since I’ve been a Mom. (It does happen! You only have to puke for six hours straight to earn one!)

And now, I'm off to drink some Vitamin Water and enjoy my nausea-free existence. It is so very good to be here.