Friday, December 7, 2012

warning: viral post

the teacher announced a minute left in our module 2 test today.  everyone was either frantically writing the final sentences of a danish email or looking over their final product for any glaring mistakes, and then my phone rang, loud and obnoxiously.  i never think to turn it off because i never get any phone calls.  it was a number that wasn't programmed into my contacts so i 'rejected' the call.  then our minute was up, our teacher was collecting our test papers and greg called.  william had thrown up at school.  i needed to go get him.

maybe it was because my mom told me it never failed that one of us was sick whenever she had a trial (she was, and now is, again, a lawyer) or maybe because i've been thinking we simply cannot be sick for christmas, or perhaps, being a mom and occasionally having strange foresight for matters regarding my own children, but last night before falling asleep i ran through the scenario of "what if william throws up at school tomorrow before i've taken my module 2 test?".  there wasn't any reason to think it.  he wasn't sick yesterday.  but perhaps it's just that now and then our worst-case scenarios are bound to materialize.  but a minute before the test was over was near perfect timing to turn worst-case scenario into something more like best-case scenario of an unfortunate, but, for a four-year old, inevitable, event.  i was able to finish the test without worrying i was leaving a sick child to languish at school or without sending greg home from work to get william (though he would happily have done it, i have no doubt).

i picked william up.  the director of the school was there and told me he was the fifth.  at first i worried about food poisoning but then she said, "three at home and two here."  one of my classmates had told me there was a stomach virus going around called the 'roskilde virus.'  i looked it up and the danish wikipedia tells me this is the danish name for the norovirus, because in 1935 a third of roskilde's residents became ill with it.  when i got william, he was doing pretty well.  he ate lunch at home and played with his legos, and at one point looked up from them and calmly told me, "i think i better run to the bathroom as fast as i can because i'm about to throw up."  he made it.  not the next time when we were lying in his bed reading books, but that was early afternoon and he hasn't thrown up since.  i'm hoping his is a quick 24-hour thing, and that somehow, the rest of us in the incubator are spared.  especially as i have the second (and more difficult) half of my module two exam as early as next friday and am completely unprepared for it!  not quite trial level stress, but still not the easiest week for a whole lot of stomach flu.  perhaps i should go study (i.e. read one of my danish novellas) now.  may you steer clear of the roskilde virus!

2 comments:

nina said...

Perhaps it's no consolation, but the best exam I ever wrote, ever, in my life (LSATs), came out of me at a time that I had the world's worst flu. Raging fever, peak of all symptoms -- I was a mess. i always think that I must have had an altered state of consciousness because none of my practice tests had ever come anywhere near that score.

Go figure.

As for worries -- of the type that you and I have: kids being sick for Christmas -- I highly recommend the article in the NYT by one of my favorite writers, Pico Iyer. It's called The Snake in the Garden. Let me know if you like it.

greg|regan said...

hi nina,

i don't know if i've ever taken an exam while sick. surely i have but the result must not have been nearly as memorable. i hope the entire family is well for friday.

okay, i have the article up and will read it! thanks!