post-apocalyptic viral syndrome

So I was gone for while, huh? This year has been a doozy for illness at CasaWeX. Since the year has started Lucas has been sick four times. In January, he had a cold that filled him with snot for days on end. In early February, he had another cold that caused congestion and complicated our flight to SF. When we got back from SF he had a rotovirus — I have never seen a small person barf such a volume as that and manage to fill diaper after diaper with copious diorhhea. Fortunately he never dehydrated, so we were able to treat that at home. Then a few Sundays ago he had a little cough, nothing tremendous, nothing to worry about (so we thought), just a little frog in his throat. That turned into a full blown feverish virus that a week later had Wade and me in Urgent Care, diagnosed with an ear infection (the first one in 20+ years) and bronchitis with a touch of pneumonia respectively. Fortunately Lucas didn’t end up with any secondary infections.

The last time I was sick like this was over ten years ago at a time in my life when I was very unhappy. I am concerned that this recent spate of illness after illness may reflect a bit of that. Rest assured that I am delving deep to determine if there is a deeper underlying issue. In the meantime we will be fortifying our immune systems, washing our hands, and avoiding people with visible symptoms.

Once we realized Lucas and I were sick with something awful, I felt enormous resentment towards the person who went out in public and exposed us to this festering illness. Of course, there was nothing malicious in the actions of the person who brought this to us. They probably didn’t know they were ill or thought they were getting better or didn’t think they would get anyone else sick. I reviewed our actions to see if there was something we could have done (other than washing our hands more frequently) to avoid this plague. Other than becoming hermits realistically there is little we can do to avoid illness. Now in day 11 of the course of this virus I find that I have below-normal energy levels and that my brain is still recuperating from last week’s sleep fest. I have one more week of antibiotics and then I hope to be back to somewhat normals levels of sleep, energy, and food intake. The one good thing about this illness is that I was uninterested in food for about 10 days and lost a small amount of weight. Who knows how that will work out?

This week I have been very tempted to take Lucas to the playground, but my concern that he may still be contagious has delayed my enthusiasm. The kid has some energy that needs to be diffused. The backyard had worked to a small degree, but I think we may need an outing tomorrow to ensure that he has proper enrichment for the week.

But for today we watched chickens on Youtube.