Randy Lay There Like A Slug......

During the past several days life has thrown me a few curve balls that temporarily derailed my momentum.  I"m reminded of A Christmas Story and my favorite line:  "Randy lay there like a slug.  It was his only defense."

On Saturday, my son woke me up in the wee hours with the full blown stomach flu (gastroenteritis).  Poor baby was the sickest I have ever seen him.  It was Pedialyte only the first day and partway into Sunday he was able to have some chicken noodle soup my sweet neighbor made for him.  I had to change his bedding several times and wash a lot of clothing as he was going through them every hour. After cleaning and disinfecting everything I went to bed exhausted Sunday night.

After

Before

Then Monday morning I heard screams coming out of the bathroom.  "Mom, there are bugs in my hair!"  This is not something an exhausted mother wants to hear.  I snapped a picture, Googled, and realized this was a story "Of Lice and Men...."  Egads!  

The pediatrician outlined what needed to be done (as well as the school nurse who I called) and I began the process of delousing.  It was a lousy job.  (teehee)  

Ummmmm

Rather than deal with getting the lice out of  ALL the hair, I decided to chop off his hair first and then just deal with what little was left.  My son is a comedian and when I turned around to grab the camera for the "after" pic this is what he did. After the haircut there was a shampoo procedure followed by some gel and a fine tooth comb and a lot of meticulous picking.  I felt like a gorilla mom.

The rest of the delousing involved washing everything we own basically. Rewash the bedding, sofa and loveseat cushions, coats, hats, clothing, stuffed animals.  Spray down anything that couldn't be washed. Zip things in plastic.  Put things outside.  Spray things.  Unfortunately, with him having the flu he had laid everywhere for two days!  The sofa, loveseat, his bed, my bed, even the ab lounger!

The pediatrician told me it was possible (though not likely) that I could have the lice too (not likely because we don't share combs or hats etc.) but as a precaution she recommended I put mayonnaise on my hair with a shower cap overnight which would suffocate them if I had any.  Mayo.  In my hair.  Overnight.  YUCK.  I chose one with olive oil.  I figured if I had to do this, I'd make it nourishing for my hair!  

After slathering it all over my hair down to the scalp, I put my hair in a shower cap and then put a tower wrapped like a turban over the whole mess.  I cannot convey how disgusting this was.  It was greasy and slimy and I smelled like a salad bar that sat out in the sun for 8 hours.

But that wasn't the worst of it.  I was to keep this contraption on until morning.  I fell to my bed at 11:30 p.m. in total exhaustion from dealing with 2 days of flu and one day of lice, only to be woken up at 2:30 a.m. with horrific stomach cramps.  Yes, I now had the stomach flu also.  On the up side, with the whole hair-in-the-shower-cap process going on, I didn't have to pull my hair back while puking.

Yesterday I didn't eat a thing.  I just couldn't.  I also didn't have coffee.  Imagine the headache I had from caffeine withdrawal.  I don't think, as I sit here and write this, that I ever did finish the laundry and I think I have stuff in both the washer and dryer.  I did get some good tips on how to get the mayo out of my hair (fun times doing this while in the midst of the stomach flu) and a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water helped tremendously.  That, and washing it three times.  The silver lining is that my hair feels so soft and it's pretty darned shiny.

So today I was able to get back to work, have a pretty productive day there, and I was able to eat both a banana and some yogurt and keep it down.  WOOHOO!  Tonight's dinner was amazing roasted chicken and a small sweet potato.  I think I could have eaten the entire chicken, but I had to remind myself we can't make up for missed meals of the past.  :-)

Through all of this, there was no way I could possibly work out.  I did, in fact, lay there like a slug and it was my only defense.  But I'm on the other side of it now and in a few more days should have my strength back and be ready to get back in the game.  I'm going to start doing the treadmill again tomorrow, even if it's just 15 minutes.  And my trainer returns Monday which gives me several days to make sure we're completely lice-free and I'm refocused on the big goal - December 31, 2011.   As a single mom, this was a pretty major onslaught of crud to deal with alone.  But as a woman on a fitness mission?  This wasn't even a blip on the radar.  

Onward and upward!