It's So Ridiculous...

...that you just have to laugh.  You know, those times in life where if something can go wrong it will go wrong and just when you think nothing else will go wrong, twelve more things do.  Yes, it's what happens when one family member complains of a sore throat and before you know it your Christmas trip is cancelled because every single family member has come down with the flu.  What in the world is a family to do when every member comes down with the flu?  Sounds a little Seuss-ish. Kind of looks that way too.

Last Wednesday I spent the entire day packing suitcases, preparing the car, and gathering activities for our ten hour road trip.  Chris had been complaining of a sore throat but also reminded me that he is on the cutting edge of evolution and never gets sick.  According to him his sore throat was a side effect of his muscles doubling in size.  Apparently his brain doubled in size as well because only brain swelling causes such delusions.  Even when his fever hit 104 that night he had a little trouble admitting he was truly sick.  Thankfully an ER doctor cleared that up for him real quick with a positive flu test.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like an ER visit.  The real gift in all of this is perhaps that not many people wander into the ER Christmas morning so that part went quick.

The flu freaks me right out.  I like those sicknesses that are easily cured with antibiotics so I was really hoping for something like bronchitis or pneumonia that would put us in the car and onto our Christmas festivities in a day or two.  But as Chris's muscles continued to double and triple in size and he was evolving even further from humanhood (that's a word I made up when I had the flu) the rest of us were dropping like flies.  Fevers, sore throats, aches, chills, coughs, blah blah blah.  Then it hit.  The point at which it really can't get any worse but somehow does.  Chris's back went out.  Sure did.  Went right on out.  Sent him to the ground where he stayed for a couple days crawling through the house while the rest of us coughed and moaned and blew our noses as if nothing at all was wrong here.  I wish just one of you could have peeked into our little house and painted a picture.

So what does a family of four flaunting the flu do? Well if it isn't obvious, we read a lot of Dr Seuss. We play games like How many of us can fit under one blanket? and How much television can children possible watch? We play endless amounts of Bourbon infused Princess Memory (one of us is partial to old time remedies). We buy our children French fries shaped like faces so at least our food is smiling at us. We attempt to make grilled cheese for our kids only to have back twinges send the sandwich flying through the air to the floor where we can't pick it up. We grab the thermometer and pass it down the line.  We train Eliza to take her own temperature which she happily reports in code as ninety, seventy, eighty (97.8) We nurse popsicles, put together every puzzle in the house, and deem one trash can as anything goes because it's just gonna just chucked at the end of all this. 

We create systems like this...

to keep up with medications like this...

It's your typical regiment...accompanied by an additional dose of antibiotics that Eliza was already on in addition to probiotics to counteract her antibiotics which had nothing to do with the flu.  Then there's the daily asthma and sinus regiment which is only worsened by the flu so an additional rescue inhaler is also on hand. It sucks to have your dosing cups run out by 9:00 a.m.

I can't tell you what day it is today.  I know it's either Monday or Tuesday only because my dad reported to me that it was Sunday a few days back.  You have to find the humor in it. It's not gonna last forever.  And it's definitely gonna happen again.  And if there is only one bit of good news in all of this it's this...when the whole family has it, at least you can stop washing your hands.