Those Fateful 24 Hours

The 24 hours following my return from Houston weren't a non-stop thrill-ride, but for me it was a day for the record books. I'm sure in 24 hours Jack Bauer could have saved the President of the United States from a horrifying scenario as well as saving his family and an entire country in Africa, all while blind-folded. But let's try not to make any comparisons here.

We arrived from Houston to our new house and were greeted by an amazing home-cooked meal by Aaron (he moonlights as a chef at our house). Grace asked multiple times if we could go back home, home meaning our old apartment. We explained multiple times that we actually lived here and would be sleeping here. The kids were skeptical of the whole situation having left their house for Houston, stayed in Houston and then came home to this other space with familiar stuff in it. We tried not to dive too deep into the explanation since they would only be here for 24 hours before we would be flying out to Utah. With some extra coaxing we convinced them that it was okay to sleep here. The concept of a crib was foreign to Christian, since he had always slept in a pack-n-play in our closet (which sounds a little like torture now that I type it out). So we ended up setting up his pack-n-play next to his crib in his room since he wasn't too thrilled with the crib.

The next morning we woke up and spent much needed time together as a family. We headed out to the Memorial Day Picnic that our church was having. After moving and being out of town it was fun to catch up with friends. The food was potlock style and we tried to chat with as many people as we could. After naps that afternoon we decided for our final meal before the kids and I headed to Utah and before Aaron took the CFA exam and then headed to NYC for his internship that we were going to go into Dallas for dinner.

We ate at one of our favorite Indian restaurants then headed back home. All through the hustle and bustle of getting the kids jammied and in-bed I noticed that my dinner felt really heavy on my stomach. Almost as if I wasn't even digesting it. I chalked it up to lots of changes happening and sipped on a soda in hopes it would settle things. There was no difference. After the kids were finally down I started packing. The stomach pain started getting worse and I could tell my body was trying hard to deal with it since I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. By this point I was literally tossing random items into our suitcase. There was absolutely no rhyme or reason to what I was doing. I finally gave up and fell into bed. I rolled around gripping my stomach and moaning to Aaron, "What is going on with me?!" He offered his condolences.

I somehow managed, amidst the pain, to fall asleep. At 2:00am, I was definitely not asleep anymore. I ripped the covers off and and buried my head in the porcelain throne. Five rounds later I thought I was victorious. I felt a million times better. I brushed, mouthwashed, and fell right back to sleep. 5:30am came and I found myself fighting the same fight only realizing 4 rounds later that I had nothing left to give no matter how hard my body tried to force it. This time I did not feel so amazing.

Reluctantly my eyes opened again around 8:30am. I could hear the sounds of Aaron feeding the kids breakfast. I thanked my lucky stars that he was there. My body hurt, my stomach was turning, I ached everywhere. There was no force of nature that could have removed me from that bed. I could barely think or function. I just didn't want to keel over and die. The only problem was, I had to fly to Utah in a few hours. Not only that, but I had to fly there alone with two children in tow.

I still needed to finish packing for our 3 week trip, I needed to shower, and for heavens sake I needed to get out of our bed. "Can you even handle this flight today?" "What are you going to do?" Those were the hot button questions. I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't survive a flight like this, but I wasn't sure the cost we would incur for canceling and when we would even get another flight out. After much deliberation I decided to go through with it. So, Aaron made me some plain toast to eat so that I could take some medicine. It took me about 45 minutes to eat it but I got it in there. I waited to make sure it stayed put and then took as much medicine as humanly possible. I somehow rolled myself into the bathtub, and by some sort of miracle I washed my hair.

Since the toast and medicine stayed put I had a glimmer of hope. Then the medicine kicked in. I was able to finish packing and do my hair. Although I still hurt and was queasy, we all made it out the door. The glory of the medicine was short lived. About 30 minutes later I was back to square one, only this time I had a 10 month old strapped to my chest and he was putting most of his weight on my ridiculously sensitive stomach. It was at this point that I started praying, "Please help me get through this. Please don't let me throw up on the plane."

I felt every single second of that flight. I wanted to crawl in a hole and give up but instead I stared and attempted movement only when I had to intervene with my kids. Thankfully Grace was an absolute dreamboat on the flight. She kept herself entertained and she was calm and quiet.

Christian fell asleep for about an hour and a half, which was amazing, and allowed me to stare into the abyss and will the plane to fly faster than ever before.

At one point I had to use the bathroom, it was a desperate moment, one where the thought of cramming three humans into an airplane bathroom seemed doable. But I didn't really have a choice. And just in case you were wondering, it was just as awful as you're thinking.

The moment we landed felt like a huge weight off of my shoulders. We made it. We survived. I almost cried when I saw Aaron's parents waiting for me.

I felt miserable the rest of that day, but around 8 that night, 24 hours after I started feeling sick, I felt fantastic. I chalked it up to food poisoning and vowed never to eat at that restaurant again.

Since Aaron and my kids hadn't gotten sick I was hopeful that my food poisoning theory was correct. However, two days later Christian got sick.

He landed himself a bed made of towels next to me so I would know when/if he threw up again in the middle of the night.

Suddenly, food poisoning was now full-blown stomach flu. And it was nasty. It's next victim was Grace.

Having the stomach flu while on vacation is terrible. Having the stomach flu while in town for your brother-in-law's wedding is an absolute nightmare. All of the people coming in town, all of the festivities, all of the people you come into contact with that you hope and pray don't come too close to you despite how not-so-contagious you might be. Serious nightmare.

After the kids got sick I holed us all up in the basement and refused to go upstairs. I sanitized everything I could get my hands on and sprayed anti-bacterial spray on everything

But the beast could not be contained. The domino effect was in full force and people fell prey to the 24 hour stomach virus that took me down. Members of the family started catching it. My father-in-law, and my pregnant sister-in-law were the first two. I felt awful. Some stated that I "gave it freely" to everyone in the family, which was not the case. I would never wish this bug on anyone or anything. I tried my best not to give it to anyone. But it took down one person, who took down the next, and then it took down every single member of the family. Not to mention, my friends too. It even took down the bride and groom on their honeymoon. Which just made me want to cry. I'll go ahead chalk myself up to the worst wedding gift giver of all time.

The worst part was knowing that I was the only common link to all of this. I brought the virus and everyone knew it. I scanned back in my mind hoping for someone else to pin in on, someone else to share the blame but came up empty handed. The only thing I could think was the Memorial Day picnic.  We came in contact with so many different people, and since the food was potlock style any and everyone there could have come in contact with the food I had eaten. But, when push came to shove, I contracted something in Texas and brought it to the wedding weekend in Utah.

Those 24 hours that started it all will go down in infamy.