Sick at Christmas!

So today we were going to take our F:AT games to Children's Healthcare and do some 10th hour Christmas shopping...but my whole family- all four of us- have contracted some kind of rotovirus/norovirus/whatever. It started with my son. Then my daughter. Then my wife. "Ho Ho, it won't get me because I drink a vitamin/fiber/antioxidant/probiotic rich fruit and greens smoothie every day" I thought. WRONG.

It's awful, our house is like a drug addict den or something today, completely disheveled with everybody laid out and taking turns to barf. We just laid here and watched the full series of Skylanders Academy on Netflix.

I don't know if I have ever been so GI sick in my life.

Happy Holidays! :-#

I'm having a bit of diharrea but other than that I'm feeling pretty good.

Hope that helps.

This past spring we had something like this, except our four year old got it a week before everyone else. He was an absolute mess for like 72 hours.

Then like 10 days later the rest of us got it, and it happened in like six hours. I woke up puking, then my wife two hours later, then the six year old. The four year old was, in the meantime, totally fine. I think he must have watched 8 hours of TV that day. I seriously remember very little of it.

After your wife and daughter spend 48 hours throwing up, make sure to tell them how good they look after.

Sorry man, that sucks. One of my earliest memories (maybe 3 years old?) is sitting watching the California Raisins going a-waffling and barfing in a small garbage can next to our couch.

When my eldest was about two he came down with norovirus shortly before my wife and I came down with it roughly simultaneously the same night. He was sleeping with us in bed when I got up at 2:30 am to go to the bathroom since I'd been stricken with diarrhea, too. I was sitting there and all of a sudden I thought, "I think I'm going to throw up." Less than thirty seconds later I'd puked all over the bathroom since just doing it in the nearby trash can never crossed my mind.

So not only was I sick but I got to mop up my own puke at 2:30 in the morning. That memory always stuck with me because no matter how nauseating I find my kids' vomit I always think, "You know, if you let yourself puke you'll just end up with two messes to clean up."

One Thanksgiving, quite a few years ago, norovirus got everyone in my family except my wife. We were staying at my grandma's at the time. I was alternating between laying on a couch with fever and chills, and sitting on the crapper with a bucket in my hand. Both ends would sometimes let go simultaneously, so the bucket was required. My wife was terrified that she was next, because that stuff gets on you fast. I'm laying on the couch, shivering, and she asks me, "Are you ready to go home?" This was a three hour drive. I told her there was no way I was going more than 10 feet from the toilet.

My wife and son were getting ready to leave the grocery store this after noon when he started barfing every where, including on himself and my wife. Supposedly something going around in town. Then he barfed in his room after his shower, while he was taking his medicine, and once he got back to his bedroom. I'm sure we will all be sick before the weekend is over.

The usual host of our Thursday game night had diarrhea this week, so we played somewhere else.

My littlest one had something like this about a month ago but it only hit her. Diarrhea lasted a good 3 days (so one of us needed to stay at home with her) until she finally threw up the virus.

Last time I got this a couple of years ago, it first hit my GF at about midnight (6 hours after the meal - tainted pasta sauce is my guess), then my bowels were working a storm (you can't go back to sleep once this starts) and as I sat on the crapper and just as I was thinking "It could hit our daughter too" blarrgg! we hear her throw up in bed. Baby daughter refused to eat those pasta so she was alright, probably had a sixth sense about it.
It lasted over a day, I didn't throw up but couldn't shake it off like my girls, until, as I was sitting there on the toilet, this bad feeling came rushing up all over my body, perpiration welled up on my forehead, and I forcefully threw up in the garbage can. Right away I felt much better and knew I was rid of it.

I'm thinking next time I might just make myself puke to skip a couple of days of intestinal misery.

I'm not physically ill right now, but I assume somebody around here is or will be sick soon, so I necro'd this thread. I might be feigning illness this Christmas, so it is semi-relevant.

I am approaching the holidays with mixed feelings this year. I was an introvert when I was younger, and somewhere about halfway between introvert and extrovert in recent years. I don't have any issues with anybody in my large extended family, but I also don't have a lot in common with most of them, so the prospect of hanging out with them for a long period of time holds limited appeal. I actually prefer the really big family get-togethers, because then I can work the room and spend moderate amounts of time with a variety of people without getting tired of any one person.

Since moving back to Minnesota many years ago, I have spent almost every single Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family. They are Irish/Swedish, so they tend to drink quite a bit without seeming drunk. They love to talk about sports, business, politics, and their large Catholic social circle, which leaves me out of the conversation about half the time. The Christmas Eve gathering is 4 to 5 hours long, and I'm fine with that. This side of the family often ignored me when I was young, but they love to talk to me now except when we get into political topics.

Growing up, I preferred my mom's side of the family. Italian/Slavic and very talkative, with plenty of hand gestures. Warm, friendly, nice people, but a bit exhausting for an introvert after a while. Since my grandparents died years ago, this side of the family has been drifting apart, though held together by my favorite uncle. He is only 8 years older than me, but retired early thanks to investing heavily in his employer's ESOP. So he has the time and inclination to go spend time with everybody, and in recent years, he keeps inviting me to spend Christmas Day with some relatives in Wisconsin. I'm fond of the aunt and uncle living there. The cousins are nice but we have nothing in common. The cousins have young kids who are noisy and want a lot of attention, but are okay kids otherwise. The drive is 90 miles each way, and my uncle always drives.

As usual, I don't feel like going. The couple of times that I have gone, it's been pleasant but too long. Counting the time on the road, it's like 13-hour day of socializing, and I usually need to get up early for work on the 26th. I know that I could ask my uncle to make a shorter day of it and he will readily agree, but on the actual day, he will drag out the goodbyes until we need to stay for dinner, followed by another round or two of long goodbyes. This year, it is supposed to be cold AF, with a low of -12 not counting windchill. I would rather binge watch some tv, maybe solo a game or two, and take a long nap. And some years, that is what I have done. Also, December 26th will be obnoxiously busy at work this year, as I am covering for a co-worker on vacation, and the workload will be heavy after a three-day weekend.

However, my mom died on Thanksgiving Day, so there is a greater expectation than usual that I will show up for Christmas with at least some of her side of the family. So while I am very tempted to tell my uncle that I'm sick, I feel like I have a duty to go. In theory, I could drive separately and leave when I want, but I have zero enthusiasm for 3 hours of driving on a frigid day. My girlfriend is a non-factor in this decision, because she always spends Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her dysfunctional family and doesn't want me to endure them.