the dreaded flu

Oh yeah. We got the dreadful stomach flu! Was it, as Kaspar would like to clarify, because of him eating snow with pollsion (he means pollution, of course) in the snow? Probably not. But he was sure the first to go down. It started as quite a surprise. He came in to our room in the middle of the night and said "I threw up." Just like that. And because he's the dreamer and has the wildest of imaginations, especially at night, I have to admit that I thought to myself "Yeah right!" However, going back to his room, I discovered that he really had chucked his cookies, as they like to say. That was the turning point of our week, last week.

That first night I hardly slept and by the morning totally lost count of how many times he threw up. It was many. A lot more then 12. I know I stopped counting at 12. As the clock struck seven, I got up to a pile, the size of our back yard snow bank, of clothes and bed sheets and pillows to be washed and yet ... I had to make it to work by 10am and actually be able to function and calculate year end totals and reconcile accounts. In times like this being a parent forces you to do the seemingly impossible. By the end of the day exhausted and weary, both Steve and I sat down to dinner, with Kaspar in bed in the next room and hoped that the 24 h had passed and the vomiting should have passed by now. But to our surprise it started full force all over again. We packed both kids in the car and went down to St. Joseph's hospital to their kids walk in clinic. It was about 8pm and upon my arrival the nurse literally rolled her eyes and said "It's about a two and a half hour wait..." and waited for my answer. Well. I'm no fool. I'm not going to put a three year old through a two hour wait at 8pm with a large metal bowl in his lap, just waiting for the next time his stomach will give the signal. Fortunately enough I know something that very few know in our fine city. There is an after hours clinic at St. Joseph's hospital that is hardly used. The few times I've been there I've only had to wait for 10 or 20 minutes before I get to see a doctor. We walked through the hospital and down a flight of stairs and found ourselves in the hands of a very nice young female doctor in no time at all. (I admit, I was tempted to go upstairs and tell all the other parents - follow me! I don't know why the kids clinic does not give parents at least the option of going down the stairs ... but it's probably some sort of inside politics.) Anyhow, after a few shots of electrolytes from a strange looking blue plastic bottle Kaspar began to feel better and stopped throwing up. We were supposed to have a whole lot more of the "electric lights" over the course of the night, but Kaspar pretty much refuses to drink the stuff. It has taken him two days to recover since the night at the hospital, but he is sure on his way to feeling much better and had begun to eat.

Of course, as Murphy would have it, Stella and Steve got sick the night that Kaspar began feeling better. These two are going through the same thing that Kaspar went through only add diarrhea to the pot. Absolutely unbelievable! I continue to work and do laundry and eat on my own, because it seems like I'm the only person eating in this household for now. I'm hoping this won't last much longer. And I'm so glad it's the week-end... Happy Saturday all around!