Vomit

It was bound to happen sooner or later, I suppose. Of all the bodily fluids I've had vented on me, this is still the one I dread most. The smell, the instinctive gut reaction to copy the action, the howling.

Lucky, I suppose, that it was just me vomiting and not F.

There's a bug in town at the moment. V had it earlier in the week (and is still recovering, grimly), yesterday was my turn. F didn't seem unduly bothered by the fact that daddy couldn't get off the sofa without changing colour. She just left me there and occasionally bought me things to read or do. Nothing to help your roiling intestines like being smacked in the face with a copy of Den Här Lilla Grisen, I find.

The actual vomit didn't happen until late in the day. I thought I'd got away with it, but no, round five o' clock I had to flee to the bathroom. F followed me in some distress, making 'oh no, daddy! what is this! what is this dreadful happening!' noises. She undermined this touching concern by then craning her neck interestedly to see what was in the toilet bowl and saying 'oo!'

The second set of heaves hit me while I was trying to feed her. I was already anxious that I was a walking plague pit, smearing germs on everything I went near, so I'd been extra OCD about preparing her food. Having to dash out as she ate it was a bad moment; she shouldn't really be left unsupervised in her high chair, for example, but she can't quite squirm out of it yet (as far as I know). So leaving her there for a minute or two was probably more child-care-conscious than spewing into her dinner.

I tried to reassure her I was okay inbetween retching. It is a low moment in anyone's life when you're incapacitated by illness but still more concerned with someone else's well-being. "Bu?" called F from the kitchen, sounding a bit anxious. I wiped my face and hurried back, but I needn't have worried. She'd just seen a bird at the window and wanted me to look at it.

Febrile and slightly confused, I tried to have an early night but really just rolled about in a twist of blankets, alternately shivering and sweating. My fever broke at about three in the morning, loudly enough to wake me out of the half-sleep I was in. It was almost as though I was getting an after-action report from my immune system.

"Yeah, so, what we've done is, we turned all the heaters up to full to blast the bugs out, so you'll need to top up your wet and dry fuel reservoirs, not much left there I'm afraid. Sorry about the smell. Your throat's taken a right pounding, all that coming and going, so you'll want to take it easy on that for a day or two, just until it's settled, and you'll probably find a lot of dead bugs gathered in your kidneys, so if your lower back feels sore for a while, no worries, that's all normal. Bill's on the kitchen table, give us a shout if there's anything else you want done. We'll let ourselves out, cheers!"

We now wait the likely horror of F getting the same bug. I can't see her being quite as equitable about that, somehow.