The Joys of Father-Son Gastroenteritis (Seriously)

The norovirus strikes suddenly and without mercy. Nausea, vomiting, chills, shaking, diarrhea, headaches and exhaustion. Usually, that wouldn’t make for a good time, but as I found out recently, it isn’t all bad.

 

 

After the first horrible night, the perks began to appear. The sickness had taken me out of the game--away from my Major Life Activity--more effectively than anything else could. Over the next few days, in brief bouts of lucidity, I was almost able to relax. I read a handful of chapters in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Sandworms of Dune and finally got to watch Thor, the first one, from 2011. It’s always moving to watch Natalie Portman fall in love, especially in genre fare.

When my son came down with the virus a couple days later, it got even better. Of course, at first it was my worst nightmare come true--someone needs to be held accountable for doing that to my child--but once my wife and I realized he would be okay, the panic subsided and the beautiful moments began popping up. Even after a vomiting session, his brave face when he looked up and proclaimed “All finished!” was worth more than anything anyone except he will ever give me. And then, as he recovered, came those times when he would just sleep in my arms or watch Disney Junior while I rubbed his back.

These are magical moments because they come at us from outside the usual sphere of incessant thoughts and activities that make up our mundane world. At times like these, I always think of the John Updike story “The City” in Trust Me. It’s about a man on a business trip who suddenly finds himself in the hospital in a strange city for an emergency appendectomy. Like me, he finds himself out of the game, everything except getting well put on hold, and reflecting on life:

“When Carson awoke again, it was twilight, and he was in yet another room, a private room, alone, with a sore abdomen and a clearer head. A quarter-moon leaned small and cold in the sky above the glowing square windows of another wing of the hospital, and his position in the world and the universe seemed clear enough.”

By the time my wife came down sick a couple days later, however, everyone had had more than enough of the norovirus and was ready to drive that curse away, but despite all the physical discomfort of those days, I’ll always have my memories of those beautiful moments with my son.