Coxsackie Virus: Or My Descent Into Hell

It all started on a Monday. We received an innocuous looking slip of pink paper from Luke's daycare:

"Please note that a case of coxsackie virus has been reported in your child's classroom. Please take appropriate precautions." 

Naturally, I wadded that bad boy up and tossed it in the trash with the rest of my junk mail. We get these notices a lot this time of year. Big deal! Kids get sick. What am I gonna do? Quarantine my kids because some other kid has the sniffles? 

Stop right there. You can clearly see from my dismissive stance that I had no f'ing clue what coxsackie virus is. I thought it was some sore throat thing. No big deal. First rule of war: know your enemy. I was already on the losing side. 

Anyway, we continued with our hectic schedules. With 4 kids in the family ain't nobody got time to worry about some crazy little virus! We were soon forced to slow down when Luke developed a fever and sore throat. Now, my husband and I have 4 kids ages 9, 6, 2, and 6 months. We are past the point of running to the pediatrician for every fever. We got the fever and sore throat protocol down pat. No biggie. I still didn't connect any of this to that little slip of pink paper.

Welp, one by one this bug circulated through the family. First 2 year old Luke, then Logan and then big sister Sarah. I prayed that somehow I'd get lucky this time and avoid catching what the kids have. I washed my hands diligently, I popped some pills preventively, but in the back of my mind I knew I would not make it. I never do. If my kids get sick, I eventually get sick too. Sometimes I just embrace the inevitable and let the sickness take me like an antelope that knows it can't outrun the lion. Just kill me and be done with it! 

And if I get sick, my husband gets 20 thousand times sicker! He claims that the virus mutates into a much stronger version once it gets to him making him much sicker than the rest of us....yeah, no. 

Like a thief in the night I felt the symptoms begin to creep up. Was that a tickle in the back of my throat? Was my forehead a little warm? Sweet baby Jesus, why!? I must have picked up my kids' flu. Pretty soon I was calling my mom on the phone at 8:00 a.m. insisting that I was dying and that she needed to come now before it was too late. It was a Wednesday and the kids who weren't sick (in this case Logan) needed to get to school. I was officially useless. My daughters looked to me for love and comfort. You are on your own kids I rasped with only my bloodshot eyes peeking out of the blanket. Go find my mother. She's our only hope now. 

I could see Sarah shaking her head at me. Slowly. As if in disbelief. I know what you're thinking kid. This wasn't my proudest moment as a parent. 

With a little bit of love, grandma's soup and some penicillin both of our fevers broke later that day. Sarah was fine the very next day and I thought I was on the mend too until....the itching started. 

It begins quite innocuously. A few red bumps on your hand. They kind of itch. You think, hey no big deal, must be a bit of a rash left over from the virus. But then the bumps start spreading. By evening, both hands are covered in red itchy welts. No biggie! You think to yourself, clearly in denial. Nothing a little Benadryl can't fix. Pretty soon though your kids are like "ew mommy what's happening to your face?" And you look in the mirror and realize that your nose looks like it's about to rot off on account of all the sores. What the hell was this illness? All the kids had was a fever. No one got this crap!

Flash forward and I am sitting in the local urgent care wearing a hijab because I am literally covered in sores head to foot. I brought along my 6 month old Stella too because she was feeling a bit warm. I know what you are thinking, "awe poor baby!" Screw the baby people! She's fine all the kids were fine! I'm the only a-hole in the family who erupted like Mount Vesuvius. I'm like the elephant man confined to my house. I'm being fed through a slot in my bedroom door because no one wants to come near me!

Anyway, the doc at the urgent care took one look at me and said, "Ew. I know what you got." By that point I was ready to submit myself to an episode of Medical Mysteries. I must have some exotic ailment like flesh eating bacteria! "It's coxsackie," he said dismissively. "Nothing you can do about it. Just has to run its course. Your co-pay is $20 dollars. Thanks." 

And that's our family's first experience with coxsackie virus. 

P.S. Note that in end we all actually had some form of the coxsackie virus. That is what caused the fever and sore throat.

P.P.S. Really lucky bastards like me also develop nasty sores on their hands, feet, mouth and other areas like the scalp and face. Fun times I tell you. 

P.P.P.S. How come all my kids just got a sore throat and I get the same illness and my nose basically rots off? It just ain't right. 

So tell me, has your family ever dealt with this dreaded virus? 

Pregnancy: I'm Doing It Wrong

As many of you may know, I had my fourth (and FINAL) child in April. What you may not know is that I am terrible at being pregnant. Now, this may sound like an odd thing coming from a woman who has been knocked up 4 times, but it is the truth. If there was an Olympic category for "worst pregnant person ever", I'd be bringing home the gold!

Some women just exude pure joy when they are pregnant.  Little birdies chirp around them. Angels sing when they enter a room with their glowing skin and perfect little bumps. They say things like, "I am just soaking in every moment of this pregnancy" while sipping organic juice and eating a healthy salad topped with grilled chicken. They talk about taking prenatal yoga classes and lovingly chart each milestone and prenatal appointment on a special keepsake calendar. 

I stomp around with a permanent bitch face slapped on. I get horrible morning, noon, and night sickness that lasts well into the second trimester. I eat hot dogs and cold cuts and sometimes cold cuts on top of hot dogs sprinkled with freaking soft cheese. The only exercise I do is throwing up. Occasionally I may rise from the sofa to hand my kids some money so they can run to the ice-cream truck and bring ME back a King Cone. I gain at minimum 50 pounds each pregnancy. On a small framed woman, 50 pounds is a whole lotta pounds let me tell you. There ain't too many places for that weight to go, so it goes EVERYWHERE. I get heartburn so bad I walk around with a Maalox mustache from guzzling the stuff. Speaking of mustaches. My pregnancy hormones get so out of whack, that I could compete for the role of bearded lady in my very own freak show. I become so forgetful that my doctors have to call ME to remind me that I do in fact need prenatal care. It's unreal how bad I am at gestating human life!

Well, every pregnancy, I have what I call a "come to Jesus moment." It is a moment in time where I realize that I am seriously done being pregnant and cannot imagine waking up even one more day looking and feeling like I've swallowed a basketball, a football, and a dang soccer ball. About 25 weeks into my last pregnancy, I had my come to Jesus moment.  Picture this: I am standing in my kitchen angrily slapping together a sandwich when my youngest runs in screaming about something or another. All toddlers sound like drunk people when they talk, so I really couldn't understand what he was saying.  Bending down to hear him better, I hear a loud "RIPPPP!!" In confusion, I quickly stood back up in search of the noise. Looking down at myself, I realized what had caused the sound.

I had split my pajama pants wide open. My pajama pants. Pants that are supposed to be stretchy and loose. Pants that had failed me. Apparently sensing the fragility of the situation, my son fled the room.

As I stood in my kitchen, suddenly nude from the waist down, all sorts of irrational thoughts flooded my head like, "could I sue the manufacturer of these pajamas for intentional infliction of emotional distress?" and "the youngest child witnessed everything - he will just have to go." Letting out a wail of pure horror I fell to my knees and gathered the tattered remains of my beloved Victoria Secret pajama pants in my hands.

Never again, I whispered, my fist clenched in the air. Never again. My husband Lou, alerted to the commotion by my toddler's drunken babbling, chose that moment to unwisely enter the kitchen to investigate. 

Any way, that's how Lou was scheduled for a vasectomy 6 months later. I wasn't kidding when I said never again. What was your "come to Jesus moment"?