Errant Body Fluids and Other (Viral) Situations
Over the summer, everyone in our household contracted an intestinal parasite (except my daughter, who in her whole seven years, has barfed exactly two times and must be hanging onto those wonderful colostrum antibodies like a fly to flypaper). No worries, you can’t get it through cyberspace but you can get it from swimming in a public, chlorinated pool. And since my husband and I were not in said swimming pool, the only other way he and I could have contracted this little bit of evil was by the fecal-oral route. Shudder. I really wish we had swallowed pool water instead.
Perhaps this is way too much information in one short paragraph but before you decide to report my family to public health (BTW, that already happened, so please don’t navigate away.)…haven’t we all, as parents, BEEN THERE???
I mean, our kids get awfully sick and get even worse symptoms as a result. We clean up our little ones in the most comforting way possible and then tend to everything in the sick path (Thus the fecal-oral route of parental illness.). How do we manage to DO THAT??? It’s disgusting. It’s revolting. If it were anyone else messing up the bathroom, the couch or the refrigerator we’d move out of the house. Immediately.
Yes. I said refrigerator. And not just to make sure you were paying attention. You see, my boys throw up all the time. I am not kidding…it is like, well, ALL THE TIME: after eating cinnamon rolls (that left a nasty stain), when the sitter comes over, while riding in the car…you name it. And once one of my little men, finally feeling like lunch after a bout of the stomach flu, opened the fridge for some cheese and promptly vomited. Not on the fridge, in it. Bright red from the juice box I allowed him. Why I thought that would be a good choice of fluid replacement after the flu, I will never know and should have known better. The silver lining? Easy to spot the mess. Bad news? I still had to clean the entire fridge for peace of mind. (to the owners of our old home in Howards Grove, the joke is on you….).
Whoever coined the phrase “Love is Blind” knows not the extent of it, I’m sure. I’d put cold hard cash on it that that individual never cleaned diarrhea off the walls in the dining room or boogers off the living room curtains. And what a shame. To wield disinfectant cleaners in such absurd situations is to know you love completely, immensely and without fear of parasites.
(Sidenote: We in our household are now parasite-free. It is perfectly safe to come visit. However, if you’d like…no, let me rephrase…However, you need to know more about Cryptosporidium and I highly recommend the CDC’s page on the topic. Trust me, this little critter is awful.)
