you’re killing me

So, now Bryan has it.  The bug that is not the swine flu, or any flu, but acts just like it. Apparently, Elizabeth didn’t have the flu either, which is somehow oddly reassuring after my panic of last Friday afternoon.

At this point, about once every 5 minutes, my brain goes – is that a sore throat? hey, HEY! I think your throat is hurting!

We somehow got in to see the doctor this morning – and I say we, because yes, I went too.  I had a list of ‘fending off imminent flu disaster’ type questions that I wanted answers for and my poor fevered husband would never have gotten them answered to my satisfaction.  Not because he is deficient in any way, but because I am more than a little crazy. Especially when it comes to my entire family being swallowed whole by some horrible illness.

Is that a headache?  Hey, I think you’re getting a fever!

So there we sat in the waiting room with about 30 other people.  Bryan put on a mask, which I thought was very responsible of him, and I certainly picked one up and held it in my hand and did not put it on even though I really really really wanted to because hello! Nobody else was wearing one! And they were all breathing and everything! Apparently, however, my fear what the rest of the room thinks is slightly bigger than my fear of what I might catch from them.  You could just feel this thing happen when Bryan slipped on that mask, an almost imperceptible shifting away from us sitting there, and so I just kind of froze up about it all.  I wished that the office staff had just made everybody put one on; that way the pressure would have been off.

Did you just sneeze?

The actual doctor part of the visit ended up being fairly anticlimactic, once he told us that there was no flu, especially no swine flu, just a virus acting like the flu, in the Jones household. I folded up all my flu questions and put them away. We came home; he went to bed, I worked a little.  And then, in what you could call desperation or determination, I began to take action.  I cleaned my house in case we all end up sick and my parents have to come rescue somebody.  I did laundry and laundry and more laundry.  I cooked.  Chicken pot pie with a homemade crust. Mashed potatoes.  Citrusy butter cookies.  Cinnamon crisps.

At least when they find us they will know we won’t have died of starvation.

So, I guess we are ready.  We have Sprite and crackers and anti-nausea medication and Tylenol.  We have freezer food that the kids can fix by themselves. We have leftover cookies. Never mind that if we all happen to live through the night and have to get up and go places tomorrow, none of my kids have a lunch made or clothes laid out, my youngest was still finishing up his homework at 9:45, and I didn’t see anyone’s weekly blue note today.

Is that a tickle in your throat? I think you have a cough coming on…