The Great Scourge

**Warning: The following post contains many references to puke.


I decided today that I have been riding the `Big Reveal` wave for a bit too long and that it is about time that I put something up to keep you interested. How about the stomach flu?
It turns out that the February Scourge of `09 has decided to become a yearly tradition.
But, before I begin Tales from the Bucket, I should tell you that Jacob and Hannah are debuting tomorrow as a ring bearer and flower girl in a wedding. Thus, for several healthy months, I have been praying the following prayer, "Dear Lord, please keep us all healthy. If we should get sick, please make it all be over by the 13th of February so that we can go to the wedding." Apparently, the Lord has a very timely sense of humour as the Scourge began on February 5th and is drawing to a close today on the 12th. RIP Great Scourge.
Jacob was the first man down last Thursday night. Jacob's bouts with the stomach flu inevitably occur while he sleeps and are fairly unobtrusive i.e. he sleeps through it all and we find him groaning and in need of a shower in the morning. However, his stomach is also able to move through these viruses pretty quickly and he was finished by Friday evening. Hannah held out until Saturday morning and kept up the heaving until Monday. (I told her that if her stomach is anything like her mother`s she should probably consider the sisterhood. She stared at me quizzically.)
Now, usually we handle these plagues with a modicum of grace if Mommy and Daddy remain untouched. Not so this time. I began the battle with the bucket on Saturday night. To add to this, I get very sick during my first trimester of pregnancy. By very sick I will refer you to the necessity of a standing prescription for Diclectin at the local pharmacy. I had always wondered what would happen if I got the stomach flu on top of first trimester sickness. Now I know.
At one point, on Saturday evening when Dave had still not succumbed, the living room stood silent witness to a sleeping (but restless) Hannah, a vomiting Mommy and a Ben and a Joe who simultaneously emerged from their rooms to puke in concert.
Nevertheless, Dave rose to the challenge and I truly praised God for the heroism of Dave's fatherly care. But, there comes a point when one daddy and his washing machine cannot keep up with the bedding or the buckets. Dave quickly discovered that the best place for pukey, waiting to be washed bedding is in the garage where it can freeze until the washing machine is available. Currently, the garage is housing a feather duvet and pillow in-queue for the laundry room. While Dave bathed Joseph at 11pm and tried to hold Ben over a bucket, I kept up a good writhe on the couch. Jacob slept unaware. Hannah moaned in her sleep. (I considered the religious life.)
Dave eventually stoked the woodstove for the night and left me on the couch with a sleeping Benjamin at my feet. By 1:37am I had reached the conclusion that my quarter-hourly retching was not something that I could stop on my own.
Now, this is nothing new to me during a first trimester. Each of my pregnancies has sent me to the Emergency Room at least once in need of an IV filled with Gravol and fluid. In fact, the twins sent me there eight times. But, as I crested into the 12th week of this pregnancy, I had thought that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn`t be visiting the ER for a meal. I thought wrong. I cleaned myself up as best as I could, deposited Benjamin at Dave`s feet in the bedroom and whispered to a less than coherent Dave that I was taking myself to the hospital. He mumbled, `Go, just go.` And then Benjamin threw up again. I left.
Now, even though I was in the midst of a mild form of torture I had to pause and laugh at how our life has changed over the past decade. During my pregnancy with the twins, Dave accompanied me to the ER for every visit: no matter what time of day. With Ben, Dave drove me to the hospital with the twins in toe. My mother brought me to the ER with Joe`s pregnancy as I happened to be visiting home when that ordeal overtook me. However, with four little ones at home emptying their stomachs at regular intervals, it is simply impossible for one`s husband to do the driving. So, I drove my sick self to the hospital through our abandoned downtown. (So abandoned that the police felt the need to follow me to the hospital. I was careful to make a full stop at our only intersection.) I arrived, retched in the parking lot and presented myself at the ER desk with my health card and relevant statistics: Hyper-emesis since 6pm; every 15 minutes. I was in a room immediately. Such stats work every time. Apparently a blood pressure of 155 over 94 also does the job.
I received excellent care; soaked in the Gravol and the fluids and checked out at 7 am so as to assess the home-front. I was only asked once if this would be my last baby. I will not tell you what my answer was.
By the time I arrived home I discovered that Dave had finally fallen victim to the Scourge and was parked in our bedroom. I, far from well, placed the children in front of the TV and crawled into Hannah`s bed. Please don`t ask me how much programming they watched... I will only tell you that I overheard them willingly decide to turn off the black box as they felt they had had enough! As the parental units lay in their separate beds, Dave called from the neighbouring bedroom, `Hey, didn`t we do this on Valentine`s day last year!` Good memory.
And so it goes. And so it is almost gone. I am almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight (another answer to prayer, Ha!) and the littlest ones are still expelling bodily fluids. But, thank you Lord, because you truly answer prayer: with only minutes to spare, the ordeal is ending before the 13th of February. Didn`t St. Theresa of Avila once say: If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few. The end.