A severe case of turbulent tum (From The Northern Echo)

A severe case of turbulent tum

11:30am Thursday 18th February 2010 in

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CHILDREN have the knack of being quite poetic in the most challenging of circumstances.

“It’s raining in my tummy,” said seven-year-old Albert, the first of the family to be struck down by a vicious stomach bug.

Half of the children at his primary school had already had it. One of 11-year-old Roscoe’s friends was sick in the car as I drove them all to the amusements in Whitby for his birthday treat. Another vomited through the night at Roscoe’s party stopover.

So when Albert came into our bed and announced: “There’s a thunderstorm in my tummy now,” I knew exactly what was coming next.

Two nights later I heard the familiar sound of throwing up on the other side of the house in the early hours. “I can hear someone else being sick,” I said to my husband, but when I reached across the bed he wasn’t there. Then I heard a retching noise from our en suite to my left.

“I’m in here,” he said, quite unnecessarily.

What started as a little light rain in Albert’s tummy had now developed into a severe weather warning.

I found 14-year-old Patrick lying on the floor of the family bathroom: “I need to be near the toilet,” he said.

Back in bed, I listened to violent thunderstorms in stereo for the next hour or so.

It wasn’t long before I heard fresh footsteps, rushing to the downstairs toilet. It was 11-year-old Roscoe being sick. Before long we had surround sound explosive thunder and lightning, complete with heavy rainfall, hail and strong winds, reverberating all over the house.

By 7am I was in an extremely delicate state, and felt as if I had an axe buried in my head. One of the boys had had swine flu before Christmas and it was nothing compared to this.

Like a row of upright dominoes in a ten force gale, we were falling down one on top of the other. I’d never known anything like it.

How come Sir Liam Donaldson didn’t warn us about this one? Where on earth was our Chief Medical Officer with his advice when we really needed him? And what would he suggest we do about the fact there was no-one to play Florence Nightingale?

In the absence of any other volunteers, that would be my job, of course.

“You’re not half as ill as me,” said my husband. I’ll have that one engraved on his tombstone, I thought, as I got up to see the older two – the only ones in the house who were still, apparently, fit and well – off to school.

As I made up hot water bottles and distributed glasses of water, I noticed that even the cat had been sick.

Then I cleaned and disinfected the toilets. But I didn’t have enough strength to get dressed for the boiler man, who was coming to see why our central heating had packed in the day before.

So I greeted him in my pyjamas and dressing gown, explained that I wouldn’t come within six feet of him, and directed him to the boiler room.

“It’s terminal, love,” he said. “Your boiler’s given up the ghost,” he said.

Somehow it didn’t surprise me. I think, given the mood of the house, it was coming out in sympathy.

There was one blessing – I couldn’t summon up the energy to feel even vaguely bothered.

I was about to go back to bed when the secondary school called to ask why one of the boys wasn’t at school.

Just as I was explaining we had a sickness bug in the house, my head started to spin. “Sorry, I’m going to be sick,” I said, putting the phone down on poor Mrs Griffiths before rushing to the toilet.

ALBERT, by now, appeared to have fully recovered and was bouncing, like Tigger, all over the house. I made him a sandwich for lunch and put on some children’s TV.

Then I had to sit down again.

“Your phone’s buzzing,” said Albert, handing me my mobile. It was a text from his dad, still upstairs in bed. “Help,” it said. “Please bring me a hot water bottle and some Lucozade.”

I texted him back: “Can’t move.” I asked Albert to bring him up a drink.

Eventually I got into bed again. Albert appeared with the Ben Ten walkie talkies he got for Christmas.

“You just call me downstairs if you need anything and I’ll call you if Roscoe or Patrick need anything,” he said, beaming.

That worked brilliantly for a few hours, even if we actually had to shout up and down stairs to be heard because Albert kept pressing the wrong buttons on his handset.

At last, the bigger boys returned to look after us all. Over the next few days, one by one, everyone – apart from the boiler – started to improve.

I was so glad to get them all back to school. But then Albert came home yesterday, looking pale.

“It’s raining in my tummy again,”

he said.