**You are greeted by sounds of hacking coughs emanating from the deep recesses of injured lungs**
Did you miss me? I could have died. No one even checked on me. Where was I? Dying. But the health department never called. No one contact traced me or my children while we wasted away delirious from fever over our spring break. I can count on one hand the number of times we have not been sick over a school vacation in the last several years. It all began when my middle child (who is no longer the favorite and is in great danger of losing her inheritance) came home from school the Thursday before spring break with a cough. Well, hell’s bells.
I isolated her in her room as best as I could and fed her through a crack in the door. No, I’m kidding. I ran in occasionally and dropped off food and medicine while holding my breath and praying to be spared. I gave her a walkie-talkie to communicate with us. I am so naive. I always think I can contain an illness in my home. It never works. I bleached doorknobs and washed my hands obsessively. I managed to stay well for three days. Then the rest of us succumbed to the awful plague.
It wasn’t COVID. I used multiple tests to find out. And then I realized, I’ve had this terrible joint and leg pain before with a scarily high fever and violent coughing. This is swine flu. It is the most violent and painful flu I’ve ever had. This round didn’t disappoint. It was as bad if not worse than I remembered. I know what you’re thinking: “You should have gotten a flu shot!” Except the CDC admitted its shot was only 16% effective this year. Yet, they still gave this to people?
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Poor Mister Fox ended up sleeping on the couch—deathly ill—while caring for our son while I cared for the middle child in fevered rounds of terror. I forgot I even had another child—the oldest who had been quarantined in her room trying to avoid getting sick (it is always a risk when you have three kids that you occasionally forget one)—only to wander into her room one night to find her burning alive with a 103.9 fever. The Mother of Year award will not be going to me this year. In my defense, teenagers are always quiet and locked away in their rooms. How was I supposed to know in the middle of my delirium that she was drowning in it too? There’s something about swine flu that makes children forget that they should come and get you when they feel like they’re dying. Instead, the virus just makes you give up on life and your legs. They just don’t work anymore. Goodbye, cruel world. Luckily, I avoided the crisis hospital trip by stripping her of all her blankets, wiping her body down, and packing her on ice like a cadaver. It worked, but it was stressful, to say the least. She woke up from her fevered dreams and demanded to know why she was freezing to death. “Because I’m saving your life!” I told her. “You were dying and I brought you back. You’re welcome!” She’s very grateful. I haven’t told her I forgot she existed and almost killed her. These are things better left unsaid.
I’m not sure if anyone fed the dog. He’s still alive, so that’s a positive. I went to check on the chickens today and they swarmed me angrily, tripping me several times. When I opened the food bin, the rooster jumped into it and began desperately eating. It wasn’t a fun job to get him out. They all hate me now. I felt their judgy stares all the way to my soul. You haven’t been withered until some very hungry chickens give you that look. How did the pioneers do it? How did they survive without Tylenol or Advil? It seems impossible or at least improbable that anyone could survive this kind of illness without modern comforts and medicine. I’m sure I would have died three days ago without a fever reducer. I sent Paula Bolyard a message and told her to will all my transgender school stories to Kruiser. I was pretty sure this was the end of me.
Swine flu is currently ripping through New York, and yet no one is asking us to stay home to slow the spread. No one is declaring businesses “non-essential” or demanding that we wear useless masks. It’s not even on the news. Does anyone find that strange? I’ve never been so sick in my life, including with COVID, than with this flu and the health department didn’t offer to bring us groceries. We aren’t under quarantine orders. I’m not suggesting any of that should happen, but why is it only for COVID and not the thousands of other nasty viruses that plague humanity? What is the deciding factor on these things? It can’t be the violence of infection because swine flu was worse for us than COVID. Does it have to be a foreign variant? Or a novel variant? Or does it have to happen during a year when a Republican president has to be defeated by Big Global? We may never know.
The world is a mad, mad place. But it’s my birthday (Tax Day), and I’m trying to enjoy it anyway. All our plans for fun over the vacation were ruined. My birthday dinner was canceled. And I feel like I’m growing mold in front of the television. But God bless Netflix anyways and the manufacturers of Tylenol and Advil. Amen
