Astragulus and Airborne can only hold it off for so long...

There's very little that I loathe more than throwing up; I will go to great lengths to avoid doing so. With the stomach virus sweeping the capital region, I have been taking every possible precaution. I haven't been touching people, or kissing them on the cheek. I've been washing my hands each step of the way, and toting hand sanitizer (a phrase Jacob has been saying perfectly for half his life - poor boy's mother is a germ-a-phobe) in my pocket. Since it's been so ungodly warm here, I probably looked Diane Keaton-ish keeping my little gloves on at all times, but you can bet there was more Howie Mandel in that than any kind of fashion statement. I was also taking an herb, astragulus (kind of along the lines of echinacea), as well as Airborne (the stuff widely marketed to keep you from getting sick) - I don't care if these things really work or if it's just a psychosomatic effect because they've done the job for me in the past.

I know Zach hardly ever puts a thought into the germs that he picks up at the office, so I'm constantly nagging him to wash his hands before he touches me or Jacob. At his work last week, I pulled out the package of clorox wipes that I brought with me and set about wiping down his keyboard, telephone, door knobs and anything else I could think of where the little germies might be hiding. And so, I blame him for bringing this home, and also for setting about the actions (rather, forgetting to) that would make me susceptible to getting sick...and come to think of it, for creating the situation that gave me bad karma.

Early Sunday morning Zach was just walking out the front door to go to work when the virus took hold of his stomach, sending him to the bathroom in a wretching fit. He never made it to work. Before I get to the bad karma part, let me say in my defense that I did go into work for Zach to take care of one of the things he couldn't do from home. Then, several couch-ridden hours later, I started gently urging the sick patient to get up and do something productive. I was only asking for baby steps, just something little to make the day home worth it. I believe my exact words were, "Just because you're sick doesn't mean you can't get anything done."

Then on Monday morning the guys came back to cut the hole, which would be the doorway into the new basement, through a foot of cement. Someone'forgot' to put a sheet of plastic up at the top of the stairs, which opens into the kitchen. I came home from work several hours after the work in the basement had begun, which means the residue had that much time to reach every little corner of the house and settle on the surfaces. When Jacob and I walked in the dust blanketing the room was so thick that our vision was destorted. I scrammbled to get the plastic up and taped to the ceiling and walls, but it only took a few minutes in that for my throat to get all scratchy and my eyes all itchy. Breathing was tough, so it was good we hadn't planned to be home for the rest of the day. Soon we headed off to Evy's house for a couple hours of baby-sitting.

My scratchy throat never went away, and when I woke up this morning it was a full-blown cold. My body is so loathe to the adverse effects of the stomach bug that for the first half of today it desperately tried to convince itself that what I was feeling was just a cold. I got worse and worse as the day went on, and then mid-afternoon I took Jacob over to Evy's house to be baby-sat by her mom for the first time. She'd been offering for a long time and I finally took her up on the offer. My reasoning before was that I didn't want to be away from Jacob. I never want to be away from him. We have such a loving relationship and he's such a good boy that he's never given me a reason to think I needed to be away from him. But I guess what I am realizing is that even if I don't want to be away from him, maybe I need to be, just for a short time.

So I came back home, as planned because even though I don't have too much trouble getting stuff done while Jacob is around, I feel guilty that I'm not spending the time with him. So at least he is in a place where he can be happier and occupied. But instead of getting a ton done around the house, I did little jobs while alternately staving off this inevitable bug. The evolution was a slow one and it turns out I am a controlled puker because by the time I had to leave to pick up Jacob, it was apparent I was going to toss my cookies. The question was just 'when'. I had enough in me to call Zach (who had just gotten home) and tell him to meet me in the driveway. He did and I shot into the house, throwing off my shoes, peeling off layers of outwear, pulling my hair into a pony tail and situating myself at the base of the toilet with my box of kleenex at hand.

That happened, then I was planted on the couch, typing this out, until about my 4th paragraph when I threw aside the computer and rushed back into the porcelain God. Now I'm back on the couch, praying that I have repayed my cosmic debt, hoping dearly the worst has passed. Jacob threw up twice on new year's day, Zach twice on Sunday, so if there is any fairness in the world...