Since returning from our amazing trip in Oregon and Washington (that I’m sure you all read about in Marco’s posts), we have been ravaged by a continuous onslaught of evil and I mean EVIL viruses that have undoubtedly come from Diego’s daycare. It began with our first day back at “school” (as we like to call it). Before we had even entered the front door, one of the mothers stopped us to tell us about the 72 hour stomach flu that had knocked out just about every family at one time or another during our absence. Unphased (yet), we walked on only to be assaulted with horror stories by a Dad in the foyer and another Mom in the 2 year old room. Marco and I stopped at that point, bent our heads together and had a quiet parent-parent conference. Should we leave our healthy son to this? Marco was leaving for Mac World that following day and I would be solo parenting for 4 days in his absence. Could I cope with 72 hours of vomiting and diarrhea by myself, knowing that I likely would succumb to the virus soon after Diego did? Did we want to risk it? It sounded from the stories like most of the young children had already had the virus and recovered so we decided to keep Diego home one more day and hope that somehow we could avoid it. Tuesday came and went – no sign of sickness. Wednesday morning was still very promising. Wednesday night Diego spiked a fever and threw up once but then seemed fine – had we dodged the bullet? Diego wasn’t eating much in the evening – but this might just be picky eating, right? Thursday and Friday day – uneventful…. At this point I was feeling positively giddy. We might just have make it! I am usually religious and slightly obsessed with reading Diego’s little progress note at the end of every day at daycare but this Friday evening was special and I neglected to even glance at the sheet. We were off to San Francisco to meet Daddy and spend a family day in the city. I was REALLY looking forward to it. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities and we had not spent any time there since Marco and I first began dating.

As I drove west on I-80, I marveled at how little traffic there was. I was cruising at 65 mph with no slowdowns, not even in Fairfield! I kept passing the signs that said it would still take me 90 then 69 minutes to downtown but I didn’t believe it, traffic was flying! Until…… Berkeley. All of a sudden 65 mph turned into 5 mph, then 3 mph. It took me 1 hour to drive from Berkeley to the Marriott at the convention center. Did I mention that I hadn’t stopped for dinner because Diego fell asleep around Davis? Well, he woke up when we got to Berkeley and I had been passing crackers and raisins and grapes to the backseat for eons and he was getting cranky. We finally made it to the hotel at 7:45 (left Sac at 5:15) and scurried down to a nearby Mexican restaurant to get some food in Diego. Did he eat? Of course not and wouldn’t even sit in his highchair for a minute. Marco and I ended up trading off – one eating hurriedly while the other ran around the courtyard with Diego. This was NOT how I envisioned our 24 hour mini vacation in the city. Back at the hotel we gave Diego his bath and put him to bed. Miraculously, he slept all night despite being in the Pack ‘n’ Play. The morning, however, was not so sunny. Diego had profuse diarrhea and was clutching his stomach and crying unconsolably. Although we had an impressive arsenal of pediatric medicinals in the diaper bag, none were GI appropriate and he was only getting worse. At this point it was only 6am. What could we do now? The only thing that might give him so relief was gripe water and Whole Foods didn’t open for another hour. Should we hightail it for home! Crap! (No pun intended, seriously…) We elected to pick up some coffee at Peet’s, wait for Whole Foods to open, buy some gripe water and then head back home. I was feeling not-so-great myself and was at that point where I needed to eat something NOW or I was going to be following in Diego’s footsteps.

I’ll spare you the details beyond saying that it took Diego 72 hours me slightly over 24 hours to recover.

Three days later Marco came down with a cough and cold. Two days later Diego woke up with pink eye. Two days after that I drove up to Tahoe to speak at the Lake Tahoe Equine Conference (talk was great fun and enjoyed my less-than-24-hours there). While I was in Tahoe, Diego was coughing like crazy, wheezing and spiking low grade fevers. Next day we took him in and he was given nebulized albuterol (for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure – that’s tantamount to waterboarding if you are an 18 month old) and he was diagnosed with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) via throat swab (also torture though less traumatic since overwith so quickly). Next day (yesterday) Marco wakes up with his eyes glued shut – more pinkeye-I wake up with a sore throat and congestion, and Diego’s pinkeye recrudesces. Seriously?

If you are wondering when it gets better – not to fear – Diego is no longer wheezing and Marco’s eyes are slightly less red and swollen. I haven’t given Diego any Albuterol for 12 hours so he is actually taking a nap! (Toddlers on albuterol are WIRED, BTW). We are determined to re-enter the land-of–the-living today no matter what. Some how we have managed to maintain some semblance of good humor despite our exhaustion and are looking forward to a healthy week ahead.

Oh yeah, and Diego’s getting his second set of tubes in his ears after 2 nearly back-to-back ear infections amidst the rest of this crap. (I’m pretty sure Diego can say “crap” now along with “dude” and some other aberrations of the English and Spanish languages). Lovely.

-by Betsy