Hong Kong Flu

Snowstorm Round One has moved through. Hubby was out fairly early this morning cleaning off the car, shoveling, and making sure the trash was out in case the trash truck is running on its regular schedule. He estimated we have about 6” of snow, with drifts in several places.

After all that work, he decided that he just needed to get out and check the roads. It's too cold for me to have cabin fever, so I let him do that by himself. He did run by the store and picked up a couple loaves of bread. He said there are some pretty impressive mounds of snow where streets and parking lots have been cleared.

People are starting to dig out. The gal across the street got out for a bit this afternoon. Then she almost didn't get back home – she lost traction before she got in her driveway and started sliding. Her hubby took over and ended up backing down to the intersection, going around the block and coming in from the top of the hill. He was sliding, but he managed to maneuver the car into their driveway. It made us grateful for our four-wheel drive.

When I was growing up, Mom commented more than once that all I had to do was hear about some illness on the news and then I would come down with it. I think it was my sophomore year of high school when Hong Kong flu hit the U.S. There were numerous news reports about it – and before long, I was down.

The one thing I would say to defend myself from Mom's comment was that Dad had it too. We ached, we hurt, we had high fevers, we wanted to sleep. I could. Dad had chores to do. Poor Mom was trying to take care of both of us and help with as many of Dad's chores as she could.

We were never a family to go to the doctor much, but I was sick enough with that flu that I needed to go. Dad was too sick to drive, and Mom never learned to drive a car. So Mom caught her cousin, who lived down the road, and asked her if she would be able to us to the doctor. It seems like she may have made that trip with Mom and me twice – not that she wasn't always busy with her own seven kids! But, bless her, she was always available when someone needed her.

The doctor loaded us up with plenty of a new flu medicine samples that he thought would work. And home I went to try to recuperate. The Hong Kong flu, if you've never had a personal meeting with it, was a very forceful illness. It didn't give up or go away easily. I tried a time or two during that siege to go to school. But one day of trudging up and down the stairs at school would wear me out and put me back in bed.

One of those afternoons, I got off the bus and headed into the house. Dad was still under the weather as well, and he was stretched out on the sofa sleeping. He was laying on his back, with his knees up and his feet flat on the sofa. I remember just sliding over the opposite end of the sofa, leaning back on his knees with my feet hanging over the arm of the sofa. And there we both slept for over an hour.

That stuff hung around for the better part of three weeks. The only thing that helped me catching up with homework was that it was winter and we had a lot of snow. School was closed for a lot of snow days during that time I was sick – in fact, I think there may have been more snow days than there were days that I was absent. I remember that it took quite a while for me to get my strength back.

It took me awhile to get back to normal after that bout of Hong Kong flu. And I think it was awhile before Mom let me watch the evening news again!