The Flu Foe

Last weekend, I was all set to upload more pictures and have a relaxing day just catching up on things around the house before Valentine's Day. We had a fun date night Saturday night, and all seemed well until Michael woke up Sunday morning and noticed unusual congestion in his chest. I still felt completely fine, and decided to go ahead and haul both kids to church with me in order to give him a chance to have a little peace and quiet. It was a challenge, but I felt like Supermom as I was able to handle it... with a little unexpected help that went a long way. One lady who goes to our church helped me get the kids out of the car; another lady had brought roasted vegetable chili for us and helped me take them back out to the car. A huge blessing indeed!

As the day progressed, it was clear Michael was dealing with something nasty. He laid in bed all day, and it was only thanks to Grandma and Great-Grandma coming down to visit that I got anything done at all. I had been watching the flu outbreak, as I had noticed an unusually high number of people I knew coming down with it. I was hoping the virus wouldn't cross our threshold, but when Michael ended up with a fever and all the classic signs I knew that the invasion had begun.

Ironically enough, the times before a more major illness took over our house I tended to have some kind of weird dream. Before we had a stomach virus back in the fall, I had a dream we were stuck in this van with this old lady that got sick and were fearing getting sick ourselves (then Liam got sick the following morning). This time, on Saturday night I had a dream I was driving in the interstate with the kids in the car, when Liam was point out there was a train "gordie." I looked and was shocked it carried a military battalion, who started just swarming the area. All the cars just stopped or pulled over on the interstate, and soldiers started hunching down, lifting weapons toward the sky, and firing. I tried to see what they were firing at, but no enemy was visible. Then I tried to flee, and found this park as I pushed through some trees along the interstate... but even there I saw chaos and no where to run.

Since Michael and I have known each other, neither of us has ever had the flu. He only remembers having it once, I don't remember having it. He had intended to get a flu shot this year (never had before), but kept forgetting his voucher from his employer the days he had time to get it. I also had a chance to get it in the hospital but had declined at the time because I had feared having a reaction to it like my aunt had, and I didn't plan to be out in crowds or anything for the remainder of flu season anyway and figured I could avoid it (also thought Michael had the shot). Michael went to the doctor's office on Monday, and though they didn't test him they said there was almost no doubt (and the test wasn't that accurate anyway), so he started Tamiflu. Those days without him were so hard. I had no breaks, constant requests, and constant fear of illness (especially when I looked at my little 5 week old girl). It was awful. Everything just fell behind as we were in pure survival mode. It did feel a little like I was in that dream I had!

I was having a really hard time being "Supermom" that long. I wasn't always cheerful. Liam has been extra challenging a lot lately, and Madeline extra fussy. I was so drained by the end of each day I was going to bed around 9pm. But I can clearly say God took care of us. Thanks to Him, I was able to get both kids down for bed, without either crying, by myself for the first time that first night Michael was sick. I had Michael's Dad, then his Uncle to help at bedtime the following two nights. Liam slept through the night a couple nights I really needed him too (I prayed God would just surround Liam with comfort and peace, and if needed even send his Great Grandma Doris or Louise, who is no longer here on earth, to comfort him if I wouldn't be able to ;-) The one night both Liam and Madeline were crying at the same time at 4:15am, I was able to pick her up and comfort her (she started going to sleep immediately in my arms), then go stand next to Liam's bed and quickly comfort him to sleep. I was just amazed! Then when I started noticing symptoms early on Wednesday, I was able to get started on Tamiflu right away and it stopped the virus in it's tracks so I never really got sick. In the middle of this, God's also been protecting our little Girlie with the best anti-viral on the planet.

The craziest part of this whole ordeal, was on Thursday night. Michael's parents had planned to come take Liam to "grandma's house" for the weekend at last, and this would be the first time he had gone there since Christmas. He was so excited about this, he was jumping up and down and cheering. They got all the way down here, when his mom noticed Liam felt a little warm. I checked his temperature and it was 101.9! I was shocked. He had acted completely normal!! I then felt horrible they got all the way down and now we couldn't send him away. We all hoped it was just an ear infection, so I called the doctor's office the following morning and got him in at 10:15. Liam's fever broke on it's own by morning, he acted like his normal self. It all looked so good and we continued to plan to go out of town for the weekend.

At the doctor's office we learned Liam is a little over 28 pounds now. We also learned with certainty we were dealing with influenza after they decided to test him. Liam had the flu shot, so we also discovered our family got hit with the strain going around our area that had hit other families who got the shot. Even if we got the shot, it wouldn't have prevented this. It was nice to have some of the questions answered and remove some of those "what ifs" floating around in our minds. Thanks to taking Liam to the doctor, he also got started on Tamiflu that was getting increasingly hard to find (had to call three pharmacies to get it). He's still been acting well overall; I'm hoping the shot helped him get a mild case and the Tamiflu really works well for him too.

Sadly we couldn't salvage our weekend plans, but Michael's parents graciously stayed an helped a lot yesterday. I just cannot believe how well God has taken care of us in all of this.

For now, we are going to quarantine ourselves awhile and hope to see everyone next weekend.