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Posted on Wed, Mar 23, 2011 : 9:07 a.m.

The family flu: What goes around comes around

By Paul Fredenberg

Clara sick.JPG

Photo by William Fredenberg

“But Daddy, didn’t we already have Chex for lunch?” asked one of the kids.

“Yeah, and for breakfast?” asked another.

It’s true, we had been eating a lot of Rice Chex, and the tone of their voices indicated that they were in the market for something different for dinner.

“I’d be happy to boil up some cauliflower if you’d prefer,” I said quickly to put things in proper perspective.

The threat was an empty one — I’m not sure I know how to make cauliflower, or if it can even be boiled — but no one called me on my bluff, and, instead, the remaining kids dove with renewed gusto into the Chex.

It was day two of Flumageddon 2011 in our home, and my wife Alison had been the first to be knocked out. One by one the kids soon followed. As their symptoms worsened, they drifted, like little sick hobos, from beds to floors to sofas in search of comfort before eventually settling alongside Alison in our big bed.

Growing up in a house of germophobes, getting sick meant, except for frequent visits from my brave mom, being more or less quarantined. But, with nine people in my current household, isolation today is nearly impossible to achieve. The density of bodies ensures that, as with the bikes in our garage, when one of us gets knocked down, the rest of us will eventually fall too.

As the hours passed and the casualties mounted, our house fell increasingly, eerily silent. The typical sounds of joyful children jumping on the couch and racing down the stairs gave way to muted coughs, blowing noses and the occasional muffled cry.

The whole scene reminded me of my birthday a few years ago. Everyone but me had fallen ill, and I aimlessly wandered around the house eager to find someone with whom to celebrate.

“Can I just get an airline level of service today?” I rhetorically asked. “A soda? some nuts?”

Except in this case I was the one serving the soda and snacks. I ran to Busch's to stock up on ginger ale and saltines. As I stood in the checkout line I wondered what percentage of my haul would end up in little tummies and how much would crystallize into the newly-formed crust gradually thickening on my bed. It was a 50/50 proposition.

With Alison out cold and the population of healthy bodies in decline, I moved to impose my own brand of “efficient” housekeeping on those still standing. If it were socially acceptable I would feed our family intravenously, but exclusively serving Chex is the next most efficient thing. To keep the bathrooms as clear as the kitchen, I placed an immediate moratorium on baths and showers. I wedged six loads of laundry into two.

As I treated Alison and the kids I scribbled mental notes on the progression of their symptoms. From what I could piece together this particular bug started first as a sore throat, followed by a headache, severe fatigue, muscle pain and then the chills.

I charted it in a little notebook, and the result ended up looking much like the Domino’s pizza tracker. I calculated that once I felt the first signs of a sore throat, I would have 48 hours until I could expect incapacitation to be delivered to my proverbial front door.

Still, even knowing what was coming, it was demoralizing to see the kids dropping one by one. With space at a premium, the kids were now wedged in sideways, and our bed was beginning to look like the student section at Michigan Stadium.

As the party continued to grow, it was hard to tell who was there due to genuine flulike symptoms and who was there, like “illness crashers,” just for the party.

Alison had fired up her laptop, and Netflix movies streamed in a constant, uninterrupted torrent. So too did sleeves of saltines and little cups of ginger ale. If not for the growing intensity of the unbathed-kid and spilled-ginger-ale fumes, I might have been tempted to stay myself.

I couldn’t help but feel a little left out, jealous even, wistfully recalling those days when my mom would roll in the little tv on a cart and allow me an entire, uninterrupted day of The Price is Right and Gilligan’s Island.

By nightfall on the fourth day, our family had turned the corner. The once pale, sick faces gradually turned bright and happy again. Unwilling to dislodge them from their safe, cozy haven, and equally unwilling to brave what would likely be a pin cushion of crushed saltines, I nabbed a spare blanket and got comfortable on the sofa for one last night.

As I lay back, listening to the mixture of little giggles and sniffles coming from under the door upstairs, I thought about the coming weekend now just days away.

I had a feeling it was going to be good. After all, the housework was mostly done, the pantry was stocked, and fresh sheets were tumbling warmly through the dryer. Plus, though I wasn’t 100 percent sure, and though it may have just been wishful thinking, way back there, deep in my throat, I thought I felt just a twitch of soreness.

Paul Fredenberg lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and seven children. He can be reached at psfredenberg@gmail.com.