How to Lose Ten Pounds in Two Days

Step One - Come to my house
Step Two - Breathe deeply of the air
Step Three - Hug all occupants
Step Four - Go home and wait
Step Five - When you feel that little knot in your stomach, remain close to the bathroom
Step Six - After emptying all bodily fluids from every orifice, repeat and repeat and repeat again. When finished, repeat again.
Step Seven - Don't eat or drink for two days.  Don't worry about will power, you won't want to and you can't.
Step Eight - step on the scales and admire your success.

As you probably surmised, we have been victims of a particularly nasty stomach virus.  It started with our one-year-old grandson, Gavin.  He became ill on Saturday.  He got sick in his mom's car as they were coming over to drop Jonathan, Gavin's older brother, off at our house.  Jonathan spends every Saturday night with us when they are in town.  Cindy knew Gavin had not been feeling well for a couple of hours and she was not going to bring him in so I wouldn't get sick.  However, she felt she needed to bring him in and get him cleaned up.  I wore a face mask for a little bit, but that didn't last long - silly me.  Of course he wanted Papa to hold him and I wasn't strong enough to resist.  He got sick again, but fortunately he was with his mom at that point but they both needed a bath this time.  After getting him and herself cleaned up, they went home.  He was sick from both ends all night long and by morning she took him to the ER.  They put him on zofran and also prescribed popsicles for hydration therapy.

Here is a picture of him in the ER in the middle of his "therapy"

Makes you say, "aww," doesn't it?

By Sunday morning Cheryl also wasn't feeling well and stayed home from church.  She wasn't vomiting, but needed to stay close to the bathroom.  By late afternoon she was feeling some better.

When Cindy brought Gavin home from the ER, she needed popsicles, so I told her I would go to the store and get them.  When I brought them to her, I was planning to just drop them off at the door and leave.  However, Gavin saw me and came running up and grabbed my legs and wanted me to pick him up.  What could a Papa do?  Of course I picked him up.  He hugged my neck hard and put his head down on my shoulder.  I knew I shouldn't, but I took him to his room and sat down and rocked him for about ten minutes.  He just stayed very still with his head on my shoulder.  By that point I figured even if I got sick it was worth it to comfort him.

Sunday night I was feeling tired and went to bed at 11, unusually early for me.  At 12:30 I woke up with horrible reflux.  I was awake all night, came out to the living room and reclined on the couch, half sitting up, but the reflux continued.  It felt like my esophagus was on fire.  By early morning I was making frequent trips to the bathroom, but was still fighting the nausea.  Cheryl got up and said she was feeling fine and went to work.  I called and canceled my appointment for my monthly blood test because I didn't want to expose other immune deficient folks.  The lab is right next to the chemo room and I often wait for the blood test results in one of the chemo chairs. 

I was supposed to meet with school administrators concerning problems with Jimmy's schedule (another involved story by itself), but there was no way I was going to make the noon meeting.  Cheryl left work early and met with the school folks. 

After the meeting, she found out that both Cindy and Jonathan (Gavin's older brother) had also become sick in the middle of the night.  All of us were running mild fevers, but Jonathan's was up to 103.  We were all aching, too.

At mid afternoon, I lost the battle and this virus did what eight rounds of chemo therapy failed to do, the vomiting started.  Cindy, who is pregnant, has morning sickness all the time anyway, but this was even worse for her.  She was getting sick constantly.  Later that evening her doctor had her go to the ER because of concern for the baby.  Cheryl went to take care of the kids.  Unfortunately, it came back to her, too.  So there she is at Cindy's house and all of them are sick and I was in bed barely moving.  Cindy was released after several bags of IVs and anti-nausea shots.  They wanted to keep her, but she wanted to get home knowing everyone was sick.

Cheryl stayed home today.  We both had a bowl of soup and toast tonight for supper, the first I had eaten since Sunday afternoon.  We are no longer tied to the bathroom, but we are totally wiped out.  We dozed off and on all day.  Before she went to bed, she said she was going to try to go to work tomorrow. 

I called Cindy and they are all better now.  Jonathan is going to school tomorrow.  It was short lived, thank God!  But very, very nasty.

Yes, I did lose 9 pounds.  Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of the other 40.  All I know is I don't want to do it this way.