Sick City!

Yup, no recent posts due to illness. Dane, Aubrey, Jan and I have had the flu-turned-brutal-colds this week. Dane was the first to come down with it last Saturday night; Aubs, Jan and I followed suit the next day. Sent Jan home on a plane Tuesday after her two week visit--perhaps a bad idea for fellow passengers...

Aubrey and Dane have had several days of 104 temps plus headaches and nausea and coughs--Dane said he couldn't move and felt "glued to the floor" one day. I have the headaches, nausea, coughs, lost voice, and fatigue. The doctor's given Dane antibiotics for his ear infection, but other than that we're just supposed to use cold medicine and Tylenol since this sucker's viral. The doctor even told us not to hope for improvement for a few days. Great.

My friend Margaret's kids have had this for a week too: in fact, her 4-year-old has visibly lost weight and her 20-month old is in the hospital with pnemonia as of yesterday. Perhaps we're lucky in the sense that at least ours hasn't escalated like that, and the weather's been awful enough, with major wind and rain, that Magic School Bus and Hello Kitty videos ad nauseum are almost tolerable.

And where is Mick in all this? We were hoping he'd remain unscathed, but he called today to tell me he had a headache and some nausea. He's staying late at school to infect his peers, I mean, work on a group project and do stuff in the lab. He's guessing he might be dealing with this tomorrow and Sunday if he's got what we have. Not good timing with major tests and assignments coming up.

Perk? Nice neighbor Susan got to be wonderful again. Brought up a big bag of fresh fruit and sparkling citrus juice on our worst day. Excellent timing.