the other side of the plague

oh. my. goodness.
i have been on major blog hiatus, mostly because i am in full catch-up mode from being down with the plague for a week (i.e. the worst stomach flu this family has EVER seen). i feel like i will never climb out from under this mound of laundry and dishes and dusty floors- my house is disgusting :(
overall i must say we have been pretty lucky this winter- i think we all had maybe one cold so this bug was perhaps an in-your-face for an easy cold and flu season.... thanks for that. so stomach flu- a big misnomer actually since it is not the influenza virus at all, but instead a viral gastroenteritis. flu is easier to say.
i woke up in the middle of the night over a week ago and was hit with the first wave of toilet fun/"flu" in between nighttime visits to a needy baby girl. it lasted all night and then i had to get up and go to work amidst disgusting wretching- it was a test day and impossible for me to reschedule. in general, we dont medicate. fevers serve a purpose and unless they are dangerously high, we don't try to squash the body's immune response. we don't even own cold medicine- it just masks symptoms and makes the cold last longer (we actually do have some great homeopathic cough syrup called 'chestal' for the little man but i digress). the point is, that normally i would not have taken anything for my intestinal barrage but i had an hour commute followed by hours of testing so i did not want to risk any... accidents... breaks in test protocol...i don't know exactly. i took anti-diarrhea medicine and in fact i did not have any emergencies while testing! no one else in the family took anything and though nolan threw up off and on for a week and my poor husband went to work every day with a steady string of bathroom visits. however, they all felt 'okay' in between the madness- i did not. i developed a raging fever and chills, headache and fatigue along with nausea for a week- but i couldn't go to the bathroom to save my life..... thanks meds?? i am convinced that had i let my body fight it naturally that i would not have had the crazy response that i did- if all that mean virus action was making its way out of my body the way my body wanted, it would not have had to ramp up my response that way. i only took one dose!! so anyway- a week later, we all awoke on the other side of the plague- we are lighter and have a new appreciation for food :) and we still have personality and a penchant for sharing too much information.