I Ate a Salad...

We have had two back-to-back weekends with stomach bug nonsense in this house. Although the first weekend only claimed poor Kate, the more recent one claimed all three of my children (including Kate...again…) and spilled over into the start of this week. I’ve been spraying Lysol and pouring bleach and washing my hands until my skin looks angry and scaly. Just when I would think one of the kids was through it, they’d barf again, leading to intense paranoia on my part.

I hate the stomach flu. Hate it. Inevitably, I end up in a ball on the cold bathroom floor, weak and shaky, vomiting every 45 minutes for something like 8 hours. I’ve never been one of the “barf twice and feel yucky for awhile” folks. I feel as though something is trying to yank me completely inside out. This leads to involuntary yell-vomiting, which leads to total loss of dignity, which leads to a bewildered husband informing me, “My mother would have beat me for screaming like that while I puked when I was a kid.” Thanks, honey.

At any rate, Tuesday night, I was done living in fear--done trying to plan my diet around things that wouldn’t be horrible coming back up should I fall victim to the flu. I declared my defiance in a bold, over-confident gesture: I ate a salad with ranch dressing and croutons at supper. Take that, stomach bug! I’m not scared of you! (If you’ve never barfed after eating salad, you won’t understand the potency of my stand here.) I texted this declaration to my sister, who replied in support, “FREEDOM!”

Brian, in a grim moment of foreshadowing, reminded me how the freedom declaration thing ended for William Wallace.

Fast-forward to the middle of the night when the stomach flu, having laughed at my boldness, had me drawn and quartered. I lost count of how many times I puked. The bathroom floor didn’t seem nearly as comforting as it used to even ten years ago. I thought of my kids who had wanted to slide down the basement stairs on a makeshift cardboard ramp hours after they had been sick and mourned the loss of my youth.

That touch of misery brought on by a day’s worth of stomach flu made me realize I don’t suffer gracefully. My thoughts drifted to people who really suffer through far more horrible things than a short-lived stomach virus, and my heart broke. I thought of the suffering Jesus endured on the cross, and it ushered in a moment of new appreciation and intense gratitude for the love he has for all of us. I offered up a few meek prayers from my spot on the tile and tried to close my eyes.

That evening, I finally managed to pry myself from the comforts of my bed long enough to strip the sheets and put on clean pajamas. A quick glance in the mirror sent this thought running through my brain: Dehydration looks good on you, Lace! A bright spot in the midst of a yucky stretch in this house.

With Thanksgiving officially here, I’m thankful the bug has run its course. It’s time to sterilize the house again and move on. Bring on the bleach!