Sick

       My first year of college, I was not wild in the traditional ways. I did not have one single drink. I stayed up late in the library, doing physics problem sets that would not be graded and went swing dancing on Saturday nights. The first time it really struck me that I was a thousand miles from home was the day of my first college track meet. I didn't make it to the meet. Instead, I spent the day puking into the toilet of my dorm's co-ed bathroom.

         I dragged my garbage can next to my bed and longed desperately for my mom. How could one be sick alone? I wanted mom to rub my back while I vomited, to take away the bile-filled bowl and bring me ginger ale and ice chips and saltines. I wanted her cool hand on my forehead, the comfort of her footsteps in the hall, the reassuring clangs of pots and pans that echoed up through the floorboards of my bedroom from the kitchen below. Not yet nineteen, I was hardly a grown-up, despite my pretensions. (At my liberal arts college, I had quickly learned to say "woman" instead of "girl.") But that day I thought that I understood what being an adult meant. Cleaning up my own vomit, I had never felt so alone, or longed so much for childhood.

        Last week, almost exactly twenty years later, I missed my mom again, with a desperation that made me catch my breath. She and my father were in the middle of a month long vacation in India when my whole family got sick. It began on Thursday morning. Sylvia, who usually wakes long before six, had slept in. When seven o'clock, then eight, came and went, I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe this would be the new norm, I couldn't help but hope. When I finally heard her cry and went to get her, she was standing in a cold orange puddle of puke. Perhaps something she ate had not agreed with her, I thought. She seemed okay. A little subdued perhaps, but then she had just woken up. I rushed her through a bath and loaded her into the car-- we were late for Clayton's school.

      Later that morning she fell asleep on my back in Amazing Savings, but still I didn't clue in that something wasn't right-- she has always loved her morning nap. But by afternoon she was puking again, with a vengeance. She wanted to nurse, but couldn't keep the milk down. Her vomit-soaked clothes and sheets piled up in the laundry faster than I could do the wash. The next morning she woke early as usual. I felt her bed in the dark-- dry! It had been 24 hours; probably the bug had run its course. I brought her to our bed to nurse as usual, and she drank greedily. Afterwards she lay quietly for a moment and then began to writhe and fuss. An instant later, we were both drenched in milk. More laundry-- our sheets and mattress cover-- went into the pile. The washer ran all day.

      By afternoon she seemed better. It was a beautiful, mild day, and we were all a little restless. We headed to the park. Sylvia fell asleep in the car on the way there, and when she woke up, puked all over us both. Driving home, still in my shirt that reeked of her vomit, I heard retching behind me. Again? I thought. I was sure she had fallen asleep. And then I saw Clayton's horror-stricken face in the rear view mirror, the vomit streaming down his chin.

    "Mama!" he wailed. "What happened?" Despite the fact that he had spent the first six months of his life spitting up profusely after every feeding, this was his first conscious experience really being sick. He was terrified, and covered in vomit, but there was nothing I could do. I concentrated on the road, telling him over and over, "We'll be home soon. We'll get you in the bath, clean you up..."

      Finally home, Sylvia was listless. She hadn't eaten for two days, had barely kept down milk. Clayton whined in the bathtub, " I don't want to be sick!" while she cried pitifully, rubbing at her eyes in exhaustion. It was after four, so I called Don at work. Please come home! Clayton's vomit-soaked clothes were still in the garage where I'd stripped him down, his soiled car seat still in the van. After his bath, I foolishly let Clayton watch videos on the laptop with a bucket beside his chair. He puked on the kitchen table instead.

      Don still wasn't home, but things started to look up. Sylvia went to sleep without complaint, and Clayton made it to the toilet for the next round. Dee Dee, bless her, charged happily around the living room, the last one standing. With Clayton resting in bed and Sylvia asleep, I made her scrambled egg and green beans for dinner. She scarfed it down with her usual zeal, and I clung to hope that she might be spared.

      At bedtime, I was reading to Clayton when I heard Dee Dee cough, then Don swear. All her dinner was on the living room floor, the pyjamas Don had wrestled her into moments before now covered with scrambled eggs and beans. In a few minutes Clayton was at it again: more soiled pjs, more dirty sheets. In the morning, the stench in his room was revolting, his comforter reeking of puke.

      Probably I should spare you any more of the gruesome details. Suffice to say that it was a very challenging week. Sylvia vomited sporadically for five days. Both girls had horrendous diarrhea that no diaper could hold, so pair after pair of pants had to be hosed down and added to the laundry. Don and I both succumbed, as well, despite relentless hand washing. (Don, after throwing up on Saturday evening, ran a 10K on Sunday in forty minutes, winning his age group!) Clayton recovered quickly from the stomach bug, but a couple of days later developed a hacking cough and fever. I blamed myself. On Sylvia's fifth day of puking, I had taken her to the doctor's, with Dee Dee and Clayton in tow. Without my mom to call for moral support, I had called the phone nurses at the doctor's office several times, wanting reassurance that five days of vomiting was in the range of normal. "Why don't you bring her in?" they said. Although I wondered if it was necessary-- it was so clearly viral, so what could a doctor do?-- it was a relief to follow orders. After the visit, Sylvia never puked again (supposedly even 12 days can be normal for a toddler) but all three kids quickly developed colds. Why hadn't I trusted my instincts, I wondered, and avoided bringing them to a waiting room surely teeming with sick kids' germs?

      For over a week, the scope of life narrowed. I did load after load of laundry. I changed diaper after diaper after diaper. I washed my hands so many times my already dry skin cracked and peeled. I hosed down carseats, scrubbed vomit-splattered walls, wiped down mattresses, changed sheets. Worried about the girls staying hydrated, I nursed round the clock. I served up Pedialyte popsicles, mixed Culturelle into apple sauce, coaxed down Tylenol mixed with ice-cream. I rocked and stroked and soothed and worried. And through it all, I longed for my mom. Not so she could help me, although if she had been here, she surely would have. I just wanted to talk to her, the sympathy in her voice as comforting as her cool hand on my brow so many years ago. I wanted her moral support, her advice, her concern. Maybe, too, in the midst of taking care of so much and so many, I wanted to talk to someone who would have wanted to take care of me. Thirty-seven years old, with three kids of my own, presumably I really am a grown-up now. But when the going gets tough, I still want my mom!