puke

My Pulse Tells The Story

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Odds are good that my neck was fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. I didn’t see it. I didn’t have to with the way my pulse rocked my body.

“Downstairs. Now.” I shoo everyone behind ushering hands and a controlled voice. The same one I use when one of the kids gets too close to a campfire or we are under a tornado warning. The one that says, listen up, this is important, I mean business.

“Why?” they ask at full attention.
“Because Dad is losing cookies he didn’t even eat. He’s sick.”

Someday we will sit around a fireplace with their future spouses in cable-knit sweaters holding spiced cider and they will be telling these stories. Mom was always walking around in rubber gloves, spraying bleach until we couldn’t breathe and in such a panic. I will laugh at myself, charmed at how they tease my silly ways. Because even now I know how ridiculous I am.

We were with friends a few nights ago. Count 4 adults and 7 kids and you know why we’re in this predicament.
I sent a text, “Little one has a fever, sorry.”
My girlfriend sent on back, “We have tummy issues, sorry.”
This is when my joints lock and I forget to breathe evenly. I try to remind myself that I will take the slime as it comes, if it comes. I vow not to monologue a series of what-if scenarios that will force me into a catatonic state. I shut my eyes and whisper, you can do this, and try to believe myself.

Instead, I did what any self-respecting phobic would do and slept head-to-toe next to my husband. Hey, at least I stayed in the room. But I wasn’t risking any midnight cough attacks in my direction that might warrant a bend over the toilet the next day. No.

Tired when I lay down, it wasn’t long before I was watching the moon edge its way over my pillow in a striped pattern through the blinds. Thoughts raced. And the more I tried to settle down the worse I got.

Calm yourself, muscles.
Balance out, breaths.
Trust Him, heart.
Do your magic, small round pill of heaven from my psychiatrist.

“The fear of this is much more paralyzing than the reality,” I said to Chase. I entertained the idea of just making myself vomit to prove it couldn’t kill me. And what is death? This is what the experts advise when I’m doing catastrophic thinking. “Go into it. Answer the ‘could’s’.” Well, then, it’s about two minutes of horrible and then it’s my favorite movies or a nap or a great book until the next two minutes of horrible. It will not do me in, though it will be uncomfortable. I will not die.  

“How’s the family?” I text today. “Long night?”

No survivors.

But something changes in the hope of my morning. While I consider isolating in an encapsulating, germ-repellant suit or living out my years in rubber gloves, I find hope.

Truth is, I’d rather be sick with a close friend, than sterile without one.

 

Let’s Talk Puke

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Guttural, from her core, one of my daughters got sick last night. As I write this and as you read it, you know. You cringe for her because you know. You’ve done it, you’ve cleaned it up for someone else, you’ve watched it happen.

I am phobic about vomit. No, let me be more specific. I am phobic about the stomach virus.

Fever? Come cuddle.
Cough? Let me grace your forehead with a kiss.
Heaving all night? Do not come within ten miles, give or take, of my breathing space.

I can be cool, calm, collected if my son gets carsick. There is hardly a chance that I’ll be doing the same in 24 hours so, be my guest. Let me comfort you. I’ll even pick it up with my bare hands. OK, no. That’s too far.
But if one the kids does the midnight whisper, “Mom, I threw up,” I am nearly in the fetal position trembling and diagnosing my own abdomen for any signs that I don’t feel good.

It may surprise you to know that in spite of this, I often am the parent who’s up with the ill, holds the bowl, cleans the mess (albeit with rubber gloves), because I am Mom. I run drink errands, wash and rinse, play movies incessantly. I am also the parent who most frequently gets the virus. When I do, it’s like I’ve been through war. I talk about it as if I’ve just gotten back from overseas where I’ve seen horrendous acts of violence and narrowly survived. I return from this dark place a hero.

But if I haven’t had it yet, I enter ritual mode. I walk the house armed in plastic, holding bleach water. Every touchable surface gets a cleansing, every fabric Lysoled. I wash my hands so much they crack. 
I try to control my fate. This is partly due to my genetic predisposition to panic disorder (which I’ve battled my entire life and will blog about another day). And what I’ve learned about the disorder is that its greatest defeater, its best cure, is to walk at with both arms swinging.

So let’s do this thing.