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HANNIBAL, MO -- That’s my 2-year-old, Audrey.  She has the flu.  You can literally see the sickness in this picture; the runny nose, the flushed checks, the fever you see in her eyes, that mournful, exhausted gaze.  Poor thing mopes around the house saying, “Momma, I wanna hold you.”  So sweet—until the whining kicks in.  But you parents know how it is.  The flu is the pits, for everyone involved.

The flu is holding this family hostage.  Grace is on the mend, but now Hannah and Emma are down, along with Audrey.  Four down, two to go.  Our doctor at the Hannibal Clinic took one look at the girls and promptly said, “Influenza A.”  Sigh.  And he would know, he just got over it himself.

It’s the middle of February, just about the time you think you’ve managed to sneak past the flu without it noticing.  Actually, the flu takes a look at the calendar and says, “Get ‘em now while their guard is down.”  This is the time of year the flu likes to strike.  It typically peaks about now, in February.  The latest weekly check of flu activity from the Centers for Disease Control shows it’s widespread, pretty much through out the nation.

I look into Audrey’s suffering eyes and I could kick myself.  I took her in for a flu shot, but I didn’t go back for the second booster.  I left the rest of the family to fend off the flu for themselves.  Again, sigh.

It’s not news I didn’t know or share a dozen times in November and December on KHQA.  I distinctly remember telling my co-worker Tegan that if I had to tell people one more time that they needed to wash their hands to prevent the spread of the flu, I would throw up on my scripts.  I’m going to spare you the prevention speech, but here’s a link in case you don’t have it memorized. 

Click here to take a quiz and test your "Flu I.Q." on the CDC's website.

When it comes to sharing, my kids are all for it, at least when it comes to germs.  Yes, we should all wash our hands a million times a day, disinfect surfaces, blah, blah, blah.  Fat lot of good that does when you have a two-year-old whose nose is running like a leaky hydrant.  Our house is a cesspool of virus and breeding bacteria.  I need a biohazard sign on the door.

So, what to do when your family has the flu?  In the next column, we’ll talk about what to do if you don’t have sick days.  How do you handle sick children when even their grandparents are skived out by the germs?  I’d like to hear how you manage things.  In the meantime, I’ve gotta run.  Florence Nightingale has to get back to the infirmary.

Take care ~Sarah