Breaking a toe and catching the flu, all within one week

My nine-year old is not in the best of worlds right now. Beginning of last week he got up from the couch and stubbed his toe on the coffee table (not the one that went to the market, thank goodness, but the one that stayed home). It wasn’t your average general stubbing, but a very violent one, clear-cut, and after thorough examination by both me and Prof. Husband, we concluded it was most likely broken. William is by far the most active member of this family, tough and strong, but the pain that this toe injury caused – even with pain relief - brought tears to his eyes for days. Not only was he in pain, but he couldn’t go out and play soccer, tag, pig, whatever games they play outside every day, and he had a couple of really rough days.

Just when his toe started to feel much better, around Sunday evening, he started feeling bad. It was a general uncomfortable feeling with some chest pain and aches. As the mean mother I am, I dismissed it as a mild case of Dontfeellikeschoolititus. By Monday evening he didn’t seem like himself though, and when he said he felt dizzy I got out the thermometer: 103°F!

I left the house on Tuesday morning with a friend who so generously had offered to take me mega-shopping to prepare for baby’s arrival. We were going to three stores, and we had just entered the first one when my husband called, stressed (he was getting ready to go to work): William had just thrown up all over the carpets in the living room, and all my husband had time to do before he left was put William in the bath and the carpets on the balcony. My relaxed and organized extensive shopping trip turned into a “grab what you can” marathon through Spinney's, and I came home to a house of chaos that took me most of the rest of the day to sort out. By evening, our four-year old seemed to have caught the bug, and towards bedtime, both my husband and I felt bad as well.

William hasn’t been able to keep anything down since Monday night, and has been more or less asleep for 36 hours now. It's the worst kind of flu; it includes bad body aches, high fever, a cold with a very sore throat, AND a stomach bug, all in one. I actually can’t remember ever seeing him this sick. My poor baby!

I just hope this virus is gone within the next few days (and that nobody else gets it as bad), as we’re counting down to baby’s arrival: T-8 days.