Go to the light

That is where I wanted to go on Thursday when I found myself smack dab in the middle of the influenza virus.  The real McCoy, and I ought to know, as I am a real McCoy via my grandmother.

Mia was at her Nannies, Bill was at work and the boys were at school.  At one point in the morning I cried out to no one in particular things like “Please help me.”  ”Mommy, get me some morphine pleeeease!” and “I need an IV stat!…or damn near stat please” 

The vomiting was every 5-10 minutes for about 8 hours.  I gave myself 25mg of phenergan, and it didn’t even put a dent in the barf fest, but was worth it for all the really cool hallucinations it induced.  I was not able to hold down anything, and got quite dehydrated.  Everything ached like I had been thrown off a very tall building and landed on a grouping of boulders.  My lungs filled with fluid and between barfs I was hacking my brains out.

A friend picked up some relief meds that the doc had called in for me..Tamaflu, the phenergan suppositories and tylenol suppositories.  And sprite.  Drinking the sprite became my refuge from the dry heaves.  If I felt the nausea coming on hard, I would take a few sips of some sprite so there would be something to bring up instead of just my small intestine and the gum I swallowed a few years ago that is taking 7 years to digest.

It started on Wednesday afternoon, and today I am still sick.  Not like Wed afternoon through Friday morning sick, but still just not right.  I can’t eat.  I am drinking now to the relief of my husband, as I was so dehydrated my skin was tenting.  Since Wednesday I have had 14oz of sprite, 12 oz of water, a coke and a can of seltzer water. 

To add to the problem, Cody came down with it on Friday and yesterday Mia got a somewhat mild version of it. Thank goodness Bill got off at noon on Friday. 

Thoughts that crossed my mind during the peak of the agony were “Is there any place left on earth that is so isolated that virus’ are not present.  Because, I don’t care if I have to sleep in a mud hut and cook over a fire made of monkey dung, I AM TAKING MY FAMILY THERE AS SOON AS I AM OVER THIS!” and the phenergan induced hallucination that I should paint everything in my house white, get a self contained filtered air system, nail all the doors and windows shut and strip naked and watch Bewitched reruns for the rest of my life, all to avoid the influenza virus ever entering my body again. 

To add insult to injury, my birthday was Friday.  We put off celebrating it until yesterday. I picked at a piece of my favorite cake and ate a california roll…the only food that has entered my body since Wednesday. It was a rocking party.

People, if you were able to avoid catching it this year without a flu shot, well, lucky dog!  But please do not take the chance again next year.  I know I won’t.  I will be grabbing my tent, a survival cooler and hanging out at the clinic to be first in line for the damn thing, because I do not EVER want to go through that again. I can seriously see why even healthy people die from it. 

**If you have not commented on my post below, please take a second to say “Hey”. I am hoping to send in enough cash for the foundation to purchase one seat for a needy family!  So, don’t be shy. It is for a good cause.  I am jazzed to read in the comments how many people are going back to the 5 point restraint for their kiddos because of viewing Kyles video.  Awesome!

******UPDATE******So, we are up to 27 awesome comments!  You guys are wonderful. But you know me.  So hard to satisfy.  Would you like to help me reach my private goal?  I would like to see 100 comments. Because, you know, that would be 300 smackeroos that will go to the foundation, not to mention all the great awareness that is spreading far and wide.  I am already so jazzed to see people so touched by the video that they are rushing out to get their kids into safe carseats and in turn posting the video on their blogs.  Did you know that the video has been viewed over 1.6 million times?  That can probably be interpreted into thousands of kids that are back into the safety of a 5-point harness seat.  That is some serious testimony going out!!  When I went to buy Cody his Regent it took me 2 weeks of online searching to find an obscure website that had a few left. The entire internet was sold out. 

Now, go peek at the video, leave a comment, and lets get another child into a safe seat. Lets hit 100 folks.