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March 12, 2007

Canada Games Fever and the Athletes Village Flu. Yodle-ay-hee-hooooo!

***WARNING - This entry has a couple of sections that some readers might find disturbing. They have both been marked with a warning just like this one***

The Canada Winter Games are over and the legacy remains. With me, anyway.

During the Games, Fawn volunteered at the Athletes Village, doing security. One day she came home and told me about how they had to wipe down all the door handles (and all other surfaces that people touched) at the village every thirty minutes because up to forty of the athletes had come down with some sort of stomach flu.

Maybe we should have wiped down Fawn1, because I came down with the "Canada Games Fever" and the "Athlete's Village Flu" on Friday and it shows little sign of abating.

I won't bore you with the details of how I've frequently been woken up every night, in a puddle of sweat, by the beads of sweat running down my sides, and I won't tell you about how I've hardly eaten anything for the past four days, or about how my neck and shoulders keep feeling stiff and painful (thank goodness the sauna fixes that!), or about how the queasiness I've felt since Friday (and everything that queasiness implies) has only recently abated somewhat and decided that it's much more fun to turn into a deep-chest, dry cough that hurts to the very bones in my neck every time I cough.

No, I won't bore you with any of that.

But I will tell you about how wonderful Fawn is. You see, Fawn has been keeping an eye on me, but has also had to assume almost all of the "Jade responsibilities". Jade has been ill, also.

Her fever started at around the same time as mine, but then we realised that she'd been having a lot of really loose bowel movements even before then, and their frequency has only been increasing; the result of which is a horrible diaper rash. So, do we attribute this to a surge of teeth coming in all at once? (She's over a year-old and she has no teeth yet, and there are some noticeable bumps on her gums that weren't there before - but we've also been duped before.) Or is it all a a combination of both teeth and illness?

We've been keeping her hydrated and have been feeding her whenever she'll take it, but her diarrhoea has been so bad, that her body has been trying to make her go when there's nothing to go with. She has adopted an interesting "posture" for her excretionary manoeuvres. She squats on all fours, rests her head on the ground and sticks her bum way up into the air, like she's trying to stand on her head. This cute posture must also be quite comfortable if you don't care about where it all ends up (when it does come out). And it would all be exceptionally cute if it didn't look like it was so hard for her to squeeze all of that nothing out of there.

Yesterday, however, I saw something that was not cute at all.

***WARNING - Some readers might find the next TWO paragraphs disturbing ***

Thinking that she was finally finished her seventeenth bowel movement of the day (which is just an estimate - really, I lost count), I took her into her room to change her diaper. She wasn't finished, though. With her legs in the air, she started squeezing. The only thing that came out was her intestine.

There wasn't much of it, mind you. And it was only the mucous membrane layer, but she was still pushing so hard that she was pooping out her intestine.

Fawn took Jade to the hospital3 (Yes, I know the footnotes are out of order, and there's a reason) while I tried to get some sleep. I was tired. I felt worse than I did even on Saturday, when I did my best to stay alert and not pass out as I played trumpet with The Big Band for the Canada Winter Games Closing Ceremony Pre-Show and my new (as yet, unnamed) tuba for the O Canada. After that, I came home and nearly passed out.

The fact that my fevered Sunday morning started with "Michael, the puddle on the upstairs bathroom floor is even bigger than it was yesterday (the first day Fawn had noticed it). It's coming out of the ceiling fan," did not help.

That minor emergency was dealt with by me wobbling outside to dig a path to the big ladder so I could drag it out of the snow to the edge of the house. Then, I climbed up to the ladder to knock the overhanging snow out of the way (and into my face) so I could actually get on the roof. This was followed by a good shovelling of snow and ice around the bathroom vent to find out where the problem was.

I think I isolated the issue (and, thankfully, it was no fault of my own), but the damage was already done. I came back inside, where I was ordered to shake off the snow that coated me as though I were a greasy doughnut at a powdered sugar orgy2, and staggered into the bathroom. There, I proceeded to tear apart the sopping ceiling drywall so the water would drop into one spot, instead of seeping along the ceiling like it had been.

And now we know that the bathroom's peeling ceiling paint wasn't because of an insufficient fan that had been installed in the bathroom, like the home inspector suggested before we bought the place. It was because there was a leak in the roof above the bathroom and the previous owners tried to cover it up without actually fixing the problem.

Flushed and feeling weak, I reasoned, "The snow has been shovelled. We have a pot there to catch the drippings. It can wait until spring when we can get an expert to fix it." And so it shall remain.

At dinner today, Norris asked me how things are going. I replied, "I've got the Athletes Village Flu, my dog has allergies to just about every kind of store-bought food, my cat is recovering from a bladder infection, I've got a leaky bathroom ceiling, and my daughter has issues with her anus."

Fawn suggested I write a country song. Ah, I love that woman...
1Ok, so Fawn had some sort of flu earlier on in the Games and maybe she didn't bring it home from the Athlete's Village.

2I just thought it would be a fun analogy, so I just had to use it. Sorry for any troubling thoughts that it may cause the next time you eat a powdered doughnut.

***WARNING - Some readers might find the following footnote disturbing ***
3The doctor in Emergency never saw it, but suggested what it might be. Fawn did a little research and came up with a similar but much more plausible diagnosis (ah, the powers of the Internet!). Tomorrow, she's taking Jade to our family doctor, possibly for a referral to a surgeon, and this time she's armed with both pictures and video of the anal affliction. I NEVER thought I'd be taking pictures of anything like that before. Fortunately, when looking at the pictures, you can't tell what it is unless you know what it is.

And due to the unfortunate responses I received when I posted a picture of Jade's placenta, I WILL NOT be posting any pictures of her...affliction. Besides, it would probably give her no end of trouble twelve years from now when she wants to bring home her new love interest. Oh. I never thought of that...


2 comments:

Peter Tyrrell said...

Holy Smokes, Michael! I hope the fact you're posting means you're feeling a bit better. Poor Jade! Poor Fawn! Poor dog and cat...

I have a suggestion for your tuba name. It could be "Hornucopious Tubert". I'll ask Rachelle. She always has good ideas for bad names.

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness....what a week! Hope everyone's feeling better...and let us know what the doctor says about Jade. The poor little thing!
Hope you gave the tuba a good clean...you don't want to come down with that flu again....Yes, I know I'm being a Mom. Go figure!