Moving to Italy: The Flu--Part 1

In February of that year at Gabi we caught the flu. I knew it was bad when James, my active four-year-old, who when ill usually fought to stay on his feet, instead lay still on his back. His fever stopped rising at 102 F, but he couldn't eat, and his pale cheeks sunk in. I watched him anxiously for three days, and then he got up to play quietly with his Legos and to eat a little soup. But that's also when he began to cough—a cough that heralded those to come.  We took him to the children's clinic and the pediatrician diagnosed Asian flu, a highly contagious strain that was sweeping the area. He gave us cough syrup for the symptoms, but told us we'd have to ride out the flu. 

Five-year-old Paul was next. His fever wasn't as high as James' and he got up after just a day in bed, but his cough was worse. Zio Silvio refilled the cough syrup prescription at the pharmacy in the village just as the two-year-old twins caught the flu. Luckily theirs was a mild case, but as they were getting over their fevers, George and I came down with the fever at the same time. Whether it was Italy or America, trying to monitor little children while we were both ill was very difficult. Day and night we coughed along with them, and soon our chest, stomach, and back muscles ached.

The children still needed care, even as our coughs worsened and our fevers roared. Though they were recovering, they had all lost weight, and I worried that their appetites were still not back to normal, especially James who had been the sickest of them. His face looked thin and his dimples deeper, even when he was not smiling. However, by the time we came down with the flu, he was jumping around and seemed to be recovering—even if he wasn’t eating well.

During the worst of our illness, George and I alternated watching them while the other rested. Of course it was a nightmare. Still somewhat sick and feeling grumpy after being confined to the house for eight days, the children poked, and pushed, and fought each other as we all coughed. I did the minimum—food and laundry—then lay immobile on the couch watching them and trying to verbally corral them while George suffered in the bedroom. When I couldn’t take any more, I woke him up for my turn to rest.

There was one good thing about that flu. George’s cough was very bad, and sometimes he struggled for breath between fits of hacking, but he still smoked. He would wait for a break in the coughing spasm so he could insert a cigarette to inhale. In the middle of one coughing fit, he looked at the lit cigarette held between his fingers, then looked at me and said, “What am I doing?  This is crazy.” He stubbed it out and hasn’t picked up another since. He lost another seven pounds with that flu, but after his recovery he substituted food for the cigarettes, regaining the weight, and then some.  

It was inevitable, of course, but soon the flu spread downstairs to my in-laws.