so last thursday i was sick. i mentioned that a couple posts ago. i wasn't even sure it was an actual "illness" until connie got sick the next evening. so it was pretty clearly a bug, & i'm guessing i caught it from unszene's kid (although that is only a guess).

i thought it would end there, but then on monday, my sister & brother in law got sick! & my brother in law even got more sick than i did. so on monday my sister had to leave work early & take my nephew over to visit his grandparents (my parents). then on tuesday they both laid around at home recovering. but they both seem better (my sister's at work now), so i was sure that now the cycle was complete & the illness could move on.

then today i got the email that now my parents are sick! hoo boy! & now a bit of history...

when i was in high school, one day my father awoke to discover that he could not open one of his eyes. i don't remember which eye (left or right), but i do know that it was his good eye. so effectively he could not see unless he propped his eyeball open. good times. & that wasn't his only symptom either, only the most prominent one.

for obvious reasons he sought medical attention. & before long he was diagnosed with a tumor on his pituitary gland. if you don't know what the pituitary is, it's like the godfather of glands. it's very tiny, but with a little help from a couple other glands, the pituitary regulates pretty much everything in your body. not the ideal place to start growing tumors.

so he was out of commission in the hospital for awhile, & probably could have died (& almost certainly would have if things had not been discovered when they were). they cut out the tumor, but a significant chunk of the pituitary itself came off with it. so essentially there is a big hole in my father's brain, right in the control center. ever since, he's been prescribed a zesty cocktail of hormones that keep him alive. without his scripts he would almost certainly perish.

now those scripts work pretty well in normal conditions, but like i said his body can't really regulate on its own. so when things vary from situation normal, it gets all fucked up. the net result is that dad has a good old aids-style immunodeficiency. a common cold or flu bug can royally screw him up. the last couple times he caught an illness, he's ended up in the emergency room, half delirious.

so like i was saying before that arctangent... mom & dad have caught the illness. dad has a fever around 102. if his fever hits 103.5 he is supposed to go to the ER. but mom's sick too; she's puking aplenty. this is where i come in.

tonight i will most likely be staying at mom & dad's house. just hanging out, watching tv, reading comics, & if necessary, rushing dad to the emergency room at a moment's notice. because mom's sure not in any condition to do it.