Flu diary: Great Pandemic 2009, part 5
Colorado Springs — Friday morning, November 20, 2009, and a terrible noise from Bronté's room gets me out of bed at 5:30 a.m. (I've slept beyond my usual 4:00 a.m. flu wake-up call). She has made a terrible snorting noise. When I see her, I know. After surviving nearly one week without coming down with the flu, my little girl is sick.
Another day at home, ill. Infected with influenza. The same cute cartoon pig, ever mild, always "reaching its peak," never very serious, just the plain ole flu.
Bronté is only half-awake, but her skin is pale. Always a pale beauty, this morning she is Snow White pale, with two rosy dark blossoms in each cheek. I feel her forehead with my lips. Yes, she is far too warm. The thermometer puts her at 101 degrees. She mutters that she has a bad headache, and that she is probably going to throw up.
I get her some natural ginger ale, which almost immediately perks her up, a little, and a flash of her usual sparkle resurrects in her dark eyes. I hold the little measuring cup for her as she quaffs a full dose of Sambucus. I have her suck on an Elderberry-Zinc lozenge as I go to prepare her nose flush. One teaspoon sea salt, one teaspoon organic baking soda, one cup just-boiled water, mixed with 1.5 cups lukewarm purified water.
I get Bronté out of bed and help her walk into the bathroom, supporting her under the arms. She's wearing her fuzzy pink robe, a Christmas present last year, and her pink fuzzy rabbit slippers. She wants me to work the bottle for her. She usually takes such pride in flushing her own nose, but today her hands are trembling too much.
Excessive strings of glass-clear gelatinous mucus wobbles and stretches from each side of her nose.
"That felt good," she says when we're finished. I get her into bed next to Mama and Genny, and am back in a moment with a big pot in case her nausea bears fruit. I notice that Wolfy has already crept into bed beside Mama on the other side of the bed, but he's uncovered. I get him snuggled deep beneath the blankets. Then I man the vaporizer brigade.
About 7:00 a.m. Mama is up helping Wolfy do a nose flush, and the first scary symptoms are showing. Several oozing blood clots splat from his nose, along with blood from his mouth, and what appears to be tiny strings of blood. The tiny strings of blood look like red veins running away from home. Everyone is moved by the gruesome produce.
I get both boys into their robes and slippers and knit beanie caps and snuggled up in their beds beneath blankets and sleeping bags. Wolfy and Dirky have both seemingly relapsed, although Wolfy seems to be showing different symptoms. Like big sister Bronté, he feels like vomiting.
Within a few minutes of each other, both Wolfy and Bronté are vomiting into different sinks, not bringing up much but their Sambucus, a little ginger ale, and what appears to be white jelly, that clear mucus that is the body's response to the influenza.
This is the first sign of nausea and vomiting. It has shown no sign in five days, but on the sixth day, with Bronté's sudden infection, the vomiting is present. And the bloody mucus.
To me, it appears that the flu has indeed been working on Bronté, and has at last found an access point, either by trying on a new antigenic disguise, perhaps pink fuzzy bunny ears, or else it is worse and has mutated sufficiently that her body cannot recognize that old strain of influenza she experienced back in July of this year and had built up sufficient immunity to keep it at bay, that wily flu.
Almost immediately, pleased with its success in cracking the Bronté code, the fox-like virus leapt from Bronté back to Wolfy, bringing along the new, worse symptoms.
Ginger ale in sippy cups, all the children snug in their beds, vaporizers sputtering out hot steam, fresh onions near their bed pluming up sulfurous vapors, and Dirky is pretty much okay, while Wolfy is markedly more ill than on the first day when he and I came down with influenza at about the same time.
Again it is remarkable that Wolfy seems to have exactly what Bronté has, which is, after all, simply flu, influenza, in all its advertised mildness.
I fix the boys up with the little DVD player that our bank gave us as a gift when we opened our checking account. They are watching Elephant Tales, with plenty of talking animals. The boys are goofy and cheerful, and Wolfy keeps laughing about the onions on the plate.
"Onions. Look at the onions," Wolfy says. Then he cracks me up: "Papa is the onion!"
Bronté is in a deep sleep. One Tylenol has brought down her temperature.
Is this a mild flu? I think this is a very scary flu. It does not seem very mild. Subtle, yes, and patient, but not kind, and not mild. I am not dead, obviously, so perhaps it is mild in that. If something does not kill you, it is mild, or however that goes. Of course, the flu is not done with me yet. I do not know how this will end. Hopefully, we will all heal, and go on, with stronger immune systems than before.
At some times during the day I feel better than I have since I felt the first symptoms. Then at other times I lie on my side and breathe, and just feel blessed that I can breathe. No real asthma attacks, and the cough has not really settled in yet. I feel like a heart monitor jotted down on paper by a flashing, squiggling pen, scratching up an down, feeling good and bad almost by the minute. Sometimes by the second.
Carolena is still symptom free, and feels good. It almost feels like a holiday to her, as all homeschooling has been canceled due to influenza. She busies herself with baby Genny, who is a full-time terror.
And Genny seems symptom free, except for that nasty cough. It is not very frequent, the cough, perhaps a gushy-wet bark every ten minutes or so.
Bronté rouses after a few hours of sleep, and feels better. Her temperature is good. Her headache is gone, as well as the nausea, but there is a distinct pall over her, a minimized, damped-down version of her usual aura of bright health. I capitalize on this eye of the storm, and get her vitamins into her, along with a stout dosage of ginger and oregano, Sambucus, and leave her with an Elderberry lozenge while she works out the dynamics of the mini DVD player so that she can watch the Elephant movie the boys watched during her repose.
Wolfy, with probably the best constitution of any of us, rallies and is hard to keep in bed. After all, tomorrow is his birthday! He wants to do crafts, while Dirky calmly works on his drawings in his sketch pads.
Everyone is sick except Mama. We hope and pray that she remains healthy. It has obviously hit me the worst, this h1n1 novel Swine Flu influenza, as I have been laid out day by day, from Monday until Friday, whereas Dirky has only had moments of illness, and Wolfy has been sick, up and down, and Genny has done surprisingly well, even for a baby, and Bronté has remained healthy and bright until today.
Throughout we have prayed. As one child gets sick, the first thing is to kneel by them and place my hand upon their forehead. And pray. Nothing fancy. No magic formulas or incantations. Just a simple entreaty to God for His presence, for His healing touch, for His healing light to shine throughout this precious body.
Often throughout the day I will come across Carolena and one of the children, with Mama praying for her little one.
There is comfort. But more, there is more. There is something more tangible than comfort. There is very real help in a time of need. A very real presence. No, more a...Presence. A peace. Peace that is hard to understand, or impossible to comprehend. A flooding peace that all will be well, and a true knowledge that even beyond our ability to understand, all will be well, even if we cannot begin to understand that...wellness. The reality behind the illusion that is this life.
That there is a reality, that we have hardly even guessed at.
Knowing this, that there is something more, something beyond a daily grind up upon a rat's undulating back in a rodents' racetrack full of plagues and diseases and viruses and epidemics, it more than nourishes the soul of the pilgrim, it encourages me, and you, to go on, continue, persevere, and even sometimes flourish. And perhaps even laugh.
