A ferocious beast called the rotavirus hit my house this weekend. I did us all in, we were unprepared and had no ammo. It affected the twins first with them throwing up one night for about three hours. Then hit Tom like a Ton of bricks where he was completely incapacitated and vomiting for 6 hours. The next night I got my 9 hours of it in. We each had about two days of feeling like we had the flu. Today we ate oatmeal and celebrated. My poor friend Alison came to visit in Friday and is now in bed after being up sick all night also. There has been articles in the New York Times and the closely related norovirus (Norwalk Virus, named for Norwalk, Ohio) has recently swept across the UK in epidemic levels as reported in the London Times and Slate. Tom got a call from his friend Danny tonight who said he was out to dinner with his parents when it hit him and somehow he managed to will himself to drive home and made it as far as his yard.

Alison and I were food shopping and I suddenly felt as if I had taken sinus medication, my whole body was buzzing. Luckily I was home when it hit, and luckily Tom had it the night before so was able to look after him and the babies. I felt that I could relate a little better to the zombies in the movie I Am Legend. I really did feel as if I had entered a trance-like state. I felt as if I had taken some psychotropic drug and 9 hours of a low-grade fever and vomiting with brief dozes in the strangest places.We brought the kids to the pediatrician today and she just told us to look out of sever dehydration but that basically we had to ride it out, and the babies could have diarrhea for up to two weeks. I really can’t imagine that, but hopefully it won’t be the case. They seem in good spirits for the most part and are drinking a lot of fluids so they should be on the mend soon. I do not wish this on my worst enemy. I am not the type to wish anything on my worst enemy anyway. Nor do I have an enemy come to think of it besides maybe the rotovirus. Its no fun being sick as my Mom has been known to say growing up. She was right. It is completely fun-free. It is hard to watch your kids be sick too, you feel so helpless and want to help them.

Alison is in town to look at some Brooklyn neighborhoods, her plan is to move her in the spring. I at least was able to do that with her on Saturday. She really liked Fort Green and Clinton Hill up to Prospect Heights. She is moving here because her father who lives in Rochester, NY is in an assisted living home but is getting to the point where he needs help with more things and she has to be closer to him to allow for more visits. She is not an only child but her sister has her own health issues so the burden lies on her. My friend Suzy is also in town visiting with her sick mother. Suzy is an only child and her mother is past the point of being able to make decisions for herself and is quite horrible to Suzy and belligerent about it all and very lonely. Suzy’s husband works for the Olympics so they are stationed in Beijing but hate it there and her two little surfer boys are looking forward to returning to Australia soon. Suzy was considering moving the whole family out to NY (as her mum is in no shape to travel) But when we talked about it her motivation was that she didn’t want her mother to be alone when she died. I told her that she could move everyone out here, and be completely drained from caring for your mother and be out grocery shopping for her and she could die. The schlep from Australia is tough, 30 hours and thousands of dollars, so they are considering LA in the interim. Suzy loves it there, and there is surf and some friends and only a 6 hour flight from NY. As much as you feel that they are your family and that you have an obligation to care for them, they are also adults, not children and you hope that they were able to make decisions for themselves when they are able to. If they are living alone and isolated, it is partially a choice. Although I do know how hard it is to let go of what is familiar when you are old. It is probably very frightening.

I am at that age where my friends on the older side of the spectrum are facing the elderly parent issue. It is hard to see them go through it all. Hopefully most of it is worked out ahead of time, and decisions are not left for others to deal with. Whenever I ask my parents about their plans for when they are very old or if their health deteriorates, I am met with jokes that I just need to wheel my fathers wheelchair to the middle of the NJ turnpike. My father is a big planner so he must have something set up. But he should share it with us, so that we know what to expect. Its so hard to have that conversation though, and I have asked my sister to help me have it with them. I haven’t seen the Michael Moore movie Sicko about the health care system. It sounds pretty depressing. It is the one issue I wish was addressed moreso by the political candidates right now. There is no debate as to weather something has to change, it just has to.

We are so lucky to have healthy parents and be healthy ourselves right now all in all though. It was a really tough weekend, but we are through the worst of it.

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