The Horrid Flu and the Poopnado

(This is what we have been going through the past couple weeks) A true story.

It was an event that we cant forget. It is stained in memory.

A couple weeks ago we were all gearing up for launching the blog. We were excited. We had the plan. Everyone had a job and was ready to start this awesome task of gathering information and creating fanciful ways of posting so that you, our reader, would have this beautiful experience of harmonious learning.

The sickness came and wiped out the plans. One by one, they were dropping like flies. There was nothing fancy about this. In fact, anything fancy went out the window. I was trying to fight this war that was on for our very health. Around the clock tending the fallen. Cries were heard from every corner of the makeshift medical ward for the sick and dying. We were surrounded by snot rags. The smell of garlic in the air. I, with my bone broths and tinctures, herbal concoctions, running from bedside to bedside. Coughs echoed. Nose blowing

While the cold winds were blowing outside, that cold feeling came in like a bite to my bones. I fell into my bed with fever raging and waved my white toilet paper snot rag in surrender. I was done. No one to help now and the health regimens from the a health advocate, gone. Who cares any more? What is the use? No longer taking my stance of, I am the healthiest woman alive, I never get sick rubbish down the toilet.

Here this keeper of the homestead, this so-called clean freak, strewn on the bed with snot rags in piles. The house was trashed. Forget the blog. Forget everything. Here I was in pathetic regret. It was that moment you realize you aren’t super woman and you are really just a wimp. I wimped out, I begged for my dear husband to take us to the doctor. I thought we were all going to die. It was life or death in my mind. Give me the drugs, take me out of my misery.

He hauled the motley crew of us off in the van. Red stained noses, hair all in matted swirls, each with our own role of toilet paper in hand. Soon the van became a veritable trash can of snot rags with a cough cloud so thick you could cut it with a knife. We get there. We sit in the waiting room and the lady at the counter is shaking her head when she realizes we made one appointment but sprung the whole clan on her on the way there. We weren’t turning back. Here I was with the mask on, hat, winter coat and mittens rocking back and forth like I lost my way. Rocking, rocking, rocking. In misery. Moaning. Yes, I was moaning in the waiting room. My children were keeping together better than I was. My eyeballs were feeling like someone was gauging them out with hot pokers. Forget trying to open them and read anything or look at any sort of light source. That was not happening.

After an hour of sitting in the waiting room waiting for paper work, they led us to the little room with the little exam table was and all I could think of was, get me on the table so I can lay down.

There I was, sprawled out and waiting for drugs. Yes, any kind of drug they will give me. She comes in and says there have not been many cases of the flu. Usually just people who “think” they have the flu. Well, I told her, “Do I look like I “think” I have the flu?” She at this point noted that my high fever and my lack of humor were both a tell tale sign. “We only had one real case of the flu this season.” I quickly vented, “Would his name be Owen?” She said, “I believe that was his name.” I said, “He is our neighbor, my husband brought him here yesterday because he thought he was going to die, too, after he came to visit us when we were dying and caught it from us!” Case closed. I had all the evidence staring her in the face. She takes this long Q tip and shoves it into our nostrils to get the results and BAM, yeah, we all had the dreaded, infamous flu.

She sends us home with a prescription Antiviral called Tamiflu, The devil himself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you will feel better on that drug. It is a lie from the pit of hell. So starts our second wave of misery. Not only are we miserable from coughing, blowing noses, and aching from every square inch of flesh and bone, now you get to experience the lovely queasy, light headed effects of the Tamaflu pills. Twice a day. You can’t eat now. You feel even more like youre dying a slow and painful death.

The next day we were all just trying to survive when the sun peaked out and I thought maybe since my eyeballs weren’t popping out of their sockets, I might try to go outside to let the Sun penetrate into my cells to feed them some Vitamin D. Then there was Lucy and Teddy. The two dogs. I thought I would be nice to them even though they have been raiding piles of snot rags and dragging toilet paper all over the house, the sun was making me feel generous. I left the two dogs out into the pasture to run around and enjoy the sunshine. Finding no where to sit, I stood on weak legs waiting for them to go to the bathroom. I could see a problem. Lucy was way overdue in the line of grooming. Her fur was matted and there was a sort of fecal mat under her tail. I saw it. That was as far as I could take it. Being sick and the entire apartment where I groom her was a demolition construction site where the landlord took the last couple months to have some guy gut and remodel the bathroom. So no grooming, and then we were sick, so yeah.

Just as I thought the two dogs would have enough play time, they unearthed a carcas. A dead something or other. I had to run, in my weakened state down the hill in a fury. Yelling at these dogs, my screams echoing off the cliffs. Anyone within one mile surely thought I was going crazy, I am sure. Maybe I was. I grabbed a stick and trying to stab it into the dead animal and fling it out of Lucy’s mouth. She was not ready to submit so my screams got louder, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” I am out there with the dead stinking animal on the end of the stick, waving it out of reach and trying to make sure they can’t get it. There I was digging a hole to shove it in and all I could do with the little energy I had to cover it with a lid from an old 5 gallon pail and chase her back up to the house so she could not get it. I forgot by this time all about the fecal mat.

I sent her out to the back dog run where she went to the bathroom the next morning and Mark said there was a small brown puddle on the porch. I said, “What was it?” We did not want to know. Later she was whining out there and I instructed Miles to let her in but to make her run up the steps first in order to clean her feet off as usual. I was laying in bed with about zero strength and then the poopnado.

The poopnado was Lucy who had a slick of diarrhea down her fur under the tail, twirling in circles and plopping her butt down, scooting over the floor. Poop everywhere in a matter of about 2 minutes times. Every one of us laying down just watching it happen with nothing we felt we could do about it. She did not spare one single room, the smear and circles or twirling diarrhea streaking the floor everywhere you looked. And the smell. Dog poop smell. The worst smell. We were already feeling like, you know what, and to smell it. Now I was yelling her name and other things I wont repeat. All my integrity, all my kind words, gone in that moment. The dog was put back outside until we could figure out how to clean this all up in our misery. WHY? WHY? WHY? is all I could scream as my foot stomped on the floor. My eyes now tearing from the vile odor. Out came the windex because that was all I could find. I devoured several rolls of paper towel in my frantic poop clean up.

Mark and I knew we had to suck this up. This is the point that you realize the teenagers are not on your side. They want no part of fixing the problem. And then I am reminded that Lucy is MY dog. I am rethinking why I have Lucy at this point. Mark and I, in our sickness, we grabbed the leash, the poop covered dog, and hauled her out. We were arguing about whether to throw the dog in the creek or if we just hose her down. I won that one. I figured the creek water would just make the poop soak into the rest of the fur and we would have a dog that smells like pond scum and poop. Not a good combination. Nope. Mark ties the leash to the propane tank and stands there just pointing the hose at the dog and telling me to lift up the tail. Go poopnado! Lucy starts twirling in poop scattering circles, and poop water sprays all over us. I go to the highest point to avoid the poop water when Mark has the audacity to yell at me. He could see the shortness of my arm and the many feet in between. I had to say, “I can’t reach the tail!” He said get the Listerine. I was standing up there, water spraying, dog doing the tornado dance. I can’t get the top off it. Mark grabs it away from me and tears it off and hands the big bottle in my direction telling me again to lift up that poopy tail. I just had to do it. Get this nightmare over with already. I grabbed the tail that was slippery waging and dog twirling while Mark is spraying the poop and I am trying to take a brush at this point and work off the fecal mat. At the poop thing worked off, I was pouring the Liserine down the fur to at least kill the odor. Mud, poop, and water everywhere and no where to stand where you are safe.

Mark says we have to bring the dog to the creek to get the feet clean. So I walk to the creek while he grabs a shovel and picks up the carcass. He hauls the carcass down a hill to get rid of it and all of a sudden my boot is gone. The dog had somehow wrapped her 70 pound body around my foot and managed to do one last twirl to remove the boot and it was laying 10 feet from my body. What in the world? Forget the creek. I am not doing that. No more outside. Mark cleared off the porch and let the dog air dry.

So the moral of the story… Just when you think it can’t get worse, It can sometimes get worse. Yet even then we have so much to be thankful for!!!

Now that we are finally done with that medicine, we are moving. Yes, we are finally moving and the timing is perfect as usual. Scratching the original blog posting ideas and replacing them with tips on moving and remodeling our new home which is always interesting. It certainly won’t be fancy, but it will be the life we love and the things we will look back and laugh at one day!