My highlights of the latest bout of family illness
Skipper, turning to me in horrified misery after her 8th vomiting episode* in 6 hours to say "Oh my god, Mom!"
Skipper, after vomiting a slurry of ginger ale and saltines consumed during a brief period of optimism, saying in an appalled voice "It's still FIZZING!"
Calling Kaiser in the middle of the night because Cook and I were getting worried that Skipper was literally going to barf her guts out - the spasms seemed so intense, and her guts were actually rumbling as she vomited. Kaiser was pretty blase about it, and no intestines were ejected, so I guess they were right.
Lying on the bathroom floor for half an hour, afraid to move for fear of barfing. Cook put a little pillow under my head, and Duchess sat beside me and regaled me with stories of her spring break camp adventure.
Crawling to the living room at 1 AM because my whole body ached too much to stay in bed and Duchess was on the couch coughing anyway. I tried various floor-based horizontal stretching positions while she drank hot lemon-honey water (prepared by Cook, of course, because I refused to stand up) and told me a lot about camp and cried about how much she was missing all the people and animals there.
Kneeling on the floor of my bedroom weeping and eating saltines in the hopes of calming my stomach so I could take more ibuprofen for the evil headache without throwing up. Duchess peeked out of my bed where she was feverishly napping and said "Mom? Mom? Are you okay?"
Peering out of my ghastly, sweaty blankets to see Cook's hand holding a glass of ominous dark liquid. In my headache delirium, I could not understand why he was trying to kill me with poison, but when he said "drink it all, right away. My mom says so,"** I drank it. It was Coke, and I felt much better surprisingly quickly.
Cook, taking care of everyone and everything*** for days.
* In the end, I think she threw up 16 times. She was weirdly disappointed that she didn't break Skipper's record of 15 barfs in 24 hours.
**The splendid Mrs. Big Cook, who knew what to do about headaches and many other things both practical and whimsical, died recently. I'm not going to say any more about that.
*** Except French-braiding hair so that it stays out of the barf. That's my purview.
Skipper, after vomiting a slurry of ginger ale and saltines consumed during a brief period of optimism, saying in an appalled voice "It's still FIZZING!"
Calling Kaiser in the middle of the night because Cook and I were getting worried that Skipper was literally going to barf her guts out - the spasms seemed so intense, and her guts were actually rumbling as she vomited. Kaiser was pretty blase about it, and no intestines were ejected, so I guess they were right.
Lying on the bathroom floor for half an hour, afraid to move for fear of barfing. Cook put a little pillow under my head, and Duchess sat beside me and regaled me with stories of her spring break camp adventure.
Crawling to the living room at 1 AM because my whole body ached too much to stay in bed and Duchess was on the couch coughing anyway. I tried various floor-based horizontal stretching positions while she drank hot lemon-honey water (prepared by Cook, of course, because I refused to stand up) and told me a lot about camp and cried about how much she was missing all the people and animals there.
Kneeling on the floor of my bedroom weeping and eating saltines in the hopes of calming my stomach so I could take more ibuprofen for the evil headache without throwing up. Duchess peeked out of my bed where she was feverishly napping and said "Mom? Mom? Are you okay?"
Peering out of my ghastly, sweaty blankets to see Cook's hand holding a glass of ominous dark liquid. In my headache delirium, I could not understand why he was trying to kill me with poison, but when he said "drink it all, right away. My mom says so,"** I drank it. It was Coke, and I felt much better surprisingly quickly.
Cook, taking care of everyone and everything*** for days.
* In the end, I think she threw up 16 times. She was weirdly disappointed that she didn't break Skipper's record of 15 barfs in 24 hours.
**The splendid Mrs. Big Cook, who knew what to do about headaches and many other things both practical and whimsical, died recently. I'm not going to say any more about that.
*** Except French-braiding hair so that it stays out of the barf. That's my purview.
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