It is official, the flu season is in effect and as my recovery from a sinus infection tipped over last night I am again full of writing energy.
All the hugging, hand shaking and breathing helps spread influenza from one to another; something you cannot prevent when families and friends gather during holiday season (call it a flu season). We didn’t escape the influenza attack either. Myself and my husband got sinus infections and dear Matthew got pneumonia, both probably side effects from various strains of the flu. It brought Matthew to a state where he was very lethargic, didn’t eat at all for two days and slept for three days, occasionally vomited, coughed a lot and had a recurring low fever. Luckily we had no issue keeping him hydrated. The Doctor couldn’t detect anything at first – it was virus ‘wait and see‘. We left with a x-ray requisition to fill if Matthew did not get better in 24 hours.
Well the x-ray indicated pneumonia in the lower lobe of Matthew’s left lung, an area hard to detect via stethoscope. We watched Matthew recover while on antibiotics – it was a slow recovery. The medication only kicked in on the fifth day. His fever broke on the seventh day. He was coughing less on the eighth day and was finally consuming full meals on the tenth day. Having him go without food for two days really worried me. I worried the first day, but then on the second day I realized that I was giving Matthew honey for his cough. A few calories there and there did help but Matthew definitely lost body mass. He hated all the moments when he had to break away from playing with toys because he suddenly became tired and had to lay down. He begged us that he wanted to get better, ‘I want to get better, how can I get better?’, he cried a few times.
Let’s put it this way, we all had an extended sick ‘vacation‘ after Christmas, consequences of the flu season. Matthew and I are now back to ‘mommy and Matthew days‘. The other day, after we accomplished everything, we were sitting on the sofa and pondering and waiting for Dad to come home. Suddenly Matthew goes, ‘Where is Dad? He’s supposed to come home when it’s light outside. He broke his promise again’. ‘May be you should talk to him’ – I encouraged Matthew. ‘Well, you talk to him he didn’t listen to me this time’.
I smiled after this little conversation we had. I realized how much I missed him being well and conversing with him. Even I missed our occasional arguments. Let me share this small incident I had with Matthew, totally provoked by me. Matthew was watching Super Mario on YouTube. I sat beside him and I wanted to point at something. Oops, I closed his session by accident. Darn tablets are just too sensitive. He looked at me, started to cry and believed that I closed his video on purpose. I tried to explain that it was an accident, but he was so annoyed by the sudden interruption that he didn’t want to understand. Would you? The best thing I could do was to let him vent and cry it out.
I left him in the room and headed for the front door to pick up the Banner newspaper bundle – every time thinking what a waste of trees. As I was walking to the door Matthew suddenly yelled at me, ‘You go away!’ I just kept going, ignored his statement and as I grabbed the door knob he yelled again ‘And make sure you put your shoes on’. Well at least I know that he cares enough for me not to let me go bare foot. It’s good to have my ‘Angry Bird‘ back and hopefully the flu season is gone soon.
Anna Lozyk Romeo
Aurora, ON
