Late-season flu knocks my family out, and takes some legs with it

“I can’t walk,” were the words that stunned me out of sleep last Saturday morning a little after 7 a.m.

I bolted out of the bottom bunk of my son’s bed and saw my youngest, my 4-year-old daughter, sitting on the floor in the hallway. Perfectly calm, not a care in the world. Except for the not walking part.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“I scooted on my butt,” she answered. I told her to stand up, she said she couldn’t. I picked her up to stand her up, and her legs were not cooperating.

I began a full freakout, obviously. The quick background: I was in my son’s bed because both my girls were in my bed with my wife. The girls were getting over the flu (as was my son), my wife was in the throes of the flu and had already left for a doctor’s appointment to find out results of a chest X-ray she had the day before. I had been taking care of this crew until I also got smacked with the flu late Friday.

So here I am: A roughly 153-degree fever, a wife at the doctor’s, a child who can’t walk, and two other children sleeping. Again, it’s 7 a.m. on a Saturday. I grabbed the phone and called the pediatrician’s office, hoping to … I don’t know what I was hoping for, but it didn’t matter, because as it turns out, my wife hadn’t left yet. She was just downstairs the whole time (whole time = 30 seconds).

I briefed her, and off to the hospital they went.

Earlier that week when we had all three of them at the doctor’s office (and were close to having to admit our other daughter to the hospital due to dehydration) we were told of some potential rare complications of the flu to look out for. One of them was the “can’t walk” thing. I really didn’t pay much attention beyond that because I suffer from congenital neurosis and don’t need anything new to worry about.

But now that my 4-year-old was actually doing the “can’t walk” thing I didn’t have much a choice but to worry. As soon as my wife left I went to Google, typed in some combination of “flu” “can’t walk” and “please God or Nature please take my legs instead” and … Benign acute childhood myositis. I was able to breathe after the first word. “Benign” is the sweetest word in the English language at times like these.

So what is benign acute childhood myositis? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. It’s benign. (It’s rare, it almost always happens after a viral infection, it’s marked by calf pain and a refusal to walk, and something called “creatinine kinase” is elevated in the blood.)

Doctors at the hospital also believed this was the case (ain’t Google the best?) and tests confirmed. They held her overnight, she came home the next morning, and as I soon as I saw her I immediately started ugly crying. Just pure blubbering. I blame the 278-degree fever I was battling, but for real: I don’t care what Google or the doctor says, when you last see your baby girl unable to walk and then next see her, 27 hours later, bounding up the front steps and into your legs for a hug, a certain amount of blubbery crying is allowable. Now.

If you’re a reader with a keen eye, you’ll note there is a giant hole in this story. A mystery, if you will. A huge question mark.

If you’ll recall, I had a 367-degree fever. My wife left for the hospital with my youngest at 7 a.m. Saturday morning, not to return until 10 a.m. the next day. (Oh, BTW, her chest X-ray was negative. No pneumonia.) So how did my two other children recovering from flu survive in the care of a man with a 521-degree fever? A man who even when sporting a 98.6 isn’t exactly “Mr. Mom” material?

Easy. I let them watch TV until their eyes fell out and my mother, according to Talmudic law, delivered chicken soup and brisket to my house. Just a two-hour roundtrip, not quite Abraham’s trip to Canaan, but close.

Thanks mom!

Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@trentonian.com, facebook.com/jeffreyedelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.