Tuesday morning Ace stumbled out of bed, claimed he was nauseous with a bad headache. Being such a kind and caring Mom, I immediately asked him what test he was trying to avoid. He snarled at me as he crawled onto the sofa and swaddled himself in a blanket. When I realized the glare he was directing me came from eyes that were red and glassy, I relented and took his temperature. While not too high at 99.6, his face felt clammy and he looked a little pale, so I told him to stay home from school and take a nap.
I was just heading out the door when some horrid rumbling sound erupted from under the blanket where I had last seen the kid. He suddenly bolted up and tried to stumble toward the bathroom but didn’t quite make it before his stomach projected outward. All over the floor. And his hands, because being the kind of kid he is, he tried to catch it. At least we made it into the bathroom before the second round started. Maybe he wasn’t avoiding a test after all.
Somewhere late Tuesday night, after spending much of the day working to expel his innards, he started coughing. And it sounded like a giant herd of walrus seals barking when he coughed. Plus it looked like it hurt, with tendons in his neck straining, face reddening, chest heaving. Hell, if I made that sound while coughing, I would be absolutely certain a lung was on its way out. ALL NIGHT LONG he coughed like this. Somehow I slept through most of it, but SuperHubby looked almost as bad as Ace did when I got up around 5:00 am. He’s such a good Dad, whereas I clearly could sleep through most anything, he stayed up all night tending to the sick child. A trip to the doctor’s was in order.
That rapid flu test the pediatrician’s do? The one where a super-sized Q-tip thingy is shoved up a nostril to tickle the brain? Ace REALLY doesn’t care for that test. For a few moments there I feared his eyes would bug out of his head and I don’t thinks he’s ever turned that color red before. I figured he had bronchitis and needed a cough medicine that would stop him from breaking something inside when he coughed. So when they said they were testing for flu, I was all ppphhththht, whatever. Luckily the pediatrician has a good sense of humor and was not offended when she said he was positive for Influenza Type A and had Croup and I was all “No Fucking Way!” and she only responded that we had to report what type of flu he had to the school, he can go back on Monday and then handed me a prescription to reduce the Croup and one for Tamiflu. Perhaps it was her way of joking when she gave me a list of symptom’s to worry about, and if Ace started exhibiting any of them, he should go to the emergency room. Immediately.
Was I ever surprised the next morning when I got a call from the local county board of health. With very deliberate and careful wording, the explained the school had reported that Ace had tested positive for Type A flu and we could take advantage of their partnership with the school district to confirm whether he had seasonal flu or something else. This very pleasant young woman on the phone was trying very hard not to say the words swine flu or use the term H1N1 virus. She explained that some parents are very eager to find out definitively whether their child had seasonal flu or not. With a little prodding I got her to admit that they were doing a cluster investigation because there were several cases of Type A flu in Ace’s school. That this call was part of the county and state investigation into possible cases of non-seasonal flu (notice the lack of H1N1 or swine flu words, because they don’t want to say those words, bad bad words.) clusters given a recent positive diagnosis of a local child. I felt bad for her actually, because for a few minutes she freaked me the fuck out and I had visions of forced swine flu testing on my family, and I grilled her mercilessly until she clarified that it was a voluntary test.
SuperHubby and I decided we didn’t really need confirmation on whether Ace had swine flu or not, the treatment doesn’t change and he was getting better. I found it very interesting how they danced around the wording and stumbled over the purpose of the call. People are getting a little freaky about the swine flu and a panic is in the works as more cases are confirmed. I appreciated their outreach and maybe we should have participated but it doesn’t make any difference whether he has it or not. If Ace was not recuperating maybe we would have. But the prednisone helped the croupy cough so he slept better and his vomiting had stopped. Let someone else be reassured if that’s what they need.
Ace most certainly didn’t care whether he had swine flu or not once he found out he’d have to have his brain tickled again.
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