A few weeks ago, a reporter for our local newspaper posted on Facebook, trying to find out whether this stomach flu – is THAT what they call it? – was around the area. Subsequent to that, I’ve been reading anecdotal tales about the nasty bugger that has hit several of my friends.
On Martin Luther King’s holiday, after coming home from seeing Hidden Figures at the movies, we realized the crockpot had been disconnected prematurely. But we thought the meat, rice, and carrots that had cooked in there would be OK. I’m known for having an iron stomach, consuming even some long-in-the-tooth that my wife wouldn’t touch. I think it’s the Protestant ethic of not throwing out things unless absolutely necessary.
But a couple of hours later, I’m having digestive distress. I figure it’s food poisoning, and that it would pass. But I visited the bathroom two or three times overnight. And the Daughter was likewise stricken at some level. We were both home on Tuesday and Wednesday that week. We all went to school/work Thursday, and I was about to head out the door for choir that night when I had a recurrence.
I went to work on Friday, but at noontime, suffered yet again, coincidentally when the new President was being inaugurated. I felt so poorly that I actually had to STAY at work, because I wasn’t sure I’d make it home. I missed the local Women’s March that Saturday because I was still feeling woozy.
Then at the beginning of February, the Wife was felled by not one, but two, ailments simultaneously, the stomach flu PLUS some upper respiratory thing with a sore throat. The combo made her looked more washed out than I had ever seen her but once. I would have stayed home with her that Thursday except for The Daughter, with a return of her own stomach flu, but still in better shape than her mother, stayed home and brought fluids and light food.
It was particularly disappointing timing too. The Daughter went on a church ski trip over that first February weekend, and The Wife and I were going to a play, a movie, maybe dinner; didn’t happen. And Monday, she still felt weak.
The potential of a snow/ice delay was on the minds of both the females in the house this past Tuesday, but it didn’t happen. But they DID get Thursday (yesterday) off, and I know they were glad for the rest, though my wife spent a goodly amount of time doing paperwork for school.
We all had gotten flu shots, so what we’ve been suffering from must be something else, unfortunately.
Being sick, then the extra cooking and cleaning I did has made my blogging output quite pathetic recently, for instance, two posts in a week. I guess why I write ahead.
“Stomach flu” often is something like Norovirus (formerly Norwalk Virus, until the town it was named after complained). It’s super transmissible, makes you deathly ill for 24-48 hours, and then slowly goes away. My understanding is that the immunity you develop after having had it wears off over time.
I had it full-bore once in my life. Apologies for being graphic, but, I never believed “projectile vomiting” was a real thing until after I had had Norovirus.
I’ve had minor bouts of digestive stuff since; apparently I have a tetchy stomach or an immune system that lets a lot of those little viruses through. I had something that wound up as gastritis last January and my digestion didn’t recover for five months.
hope you feel better now, I know there is a lot of flu going around here. Sometimes the flu shot does not exactly work either.
Yuuuup. Sounds like the plagues hitting my college.