Hopefully my percentage will increase. I have experienced sickness-induced incapacitationtwo out of the first three weekends of this new year.

The first weekend I was completely out of commission. The second I was OK, but Friday night and all day Saturday was tied up in something I'd committed to but which kept me away from my family. The third weekend, the one this item is about, I went to bed Saturday night- and got up Monday morning!

Saturday January 15, 2005 started off as many Saturdays have at our household. I needed a haircut and should have gotten up early to be at the barber shop by opening at 8:30, but instead I slept till about 9:30.

The day progressed in like manner in the following hours. It was one of those luxuriously slack Saturdays where we didn't really go anywhere or do anything but it was nice to just relax with the family and be together. We went to the bank and the post office and all that kind of morning errand stuff, but after that we hung around at home. Isaiah and Gideon played around and while they were having naps I read a bit. Later on I actually got to watch This Old House for a change.

Ruth made a pretty good supper. I thought I had eaten a bit too much since about forty-five minutes after supper my stomach started feeling a little funny. It didn't subside like I was hoping it would, but like I said I figured I'd eaten too much.

A few hours later it turned out that my thinking had been a bit optimistic. I woke up about one a.m. with my stomach feeling quite a bit not right. Unfortunately, 'quite a bit not right' began to spin around and undulate outward until it blossomed into full-fledged nausea.

I have a fairly high pain tolerance, but I don't deal well with nausea. It is the one feeling I think I hate the worst. I'm not found of regurgitation, either, but I'd much rather barf and get it over with than feel like I'm going to.

Not long after I began having thoughts along the lines of the last paragraph above, I did indeed perform that anxiously anticipated action that cured my nausea in a matter of moments. That cure turned out to be temporary though, because I found the above cycle of events repeating themselves four more times before the sun rose.

As you may be able to imagine, while the first incident was no fun it was successful as far as such things go. The following ones were progressively less so due to the fact that there was less and less in my stomach to expunge. Additionally, as the following incidents had less to work with, so to speak, they became more vehement and though, thankfully, I experienced no more nausea after the last one I, it enacted a bit of brutality upon my throat and I was left with no voice.

I woke Sunday morning feeling much better in that my stomach was no longer troubling me, but I was very weak and tired and wanted nothing but to lie quietly in bed and sleep myself back to health.

Ruth began getting the boys ready for church and had gone downstairs to fill a sippy-cup for Gideon. It was while she was in the kitchen that I heard Isaiah get out of bed, pad to the bathroom and "Blachcch... Whuhaaghhch... YAaChhh!"

"Isaiah," I shouted in a whisper barely audible to him in the next room, "Did you just throw up?"

"Yeah."

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well, Mom will be back up in a second. She'll wash your face for you and you can get back in bed and rest. If you're sick you'll have to stay home with me."

Of course, that didn't work out quite as I intended. Ruth came back upstairs and washed Isaiah's face, of course and he did stay home, but he did not get back in his bed. He joined me in mine.

That turned out to be OK, though. He was sick and he felt weak and tired just like I did. He lay far more still than I expected and slept most of the time- except for the 3 more trips he took at the wheel of the porcelain bus.

By the time Ruth (who had spent the entire afternoon staying away from us as much as possible to avoid getting what we had) was getting Gideon ready to go to church that night, I was thinking it might be nice to taste a bit of something and the something I was thinking of was Ritz crackers. I asked her to pick some up on her way home. Of course, as soon as Isaiah heard me say the "r" word he started bugging me about having some himself. I told him that I would try some first and if after a while there was no problem, he could try some but we had to wait for Ruth to get back home with them, first.

When she did get home and I got around to trying a few crackers, everything seemed OK and after waiting a while, I wanted more so I figured my stomach at least was fine, though I was still content to remain in bed. Later I let Isaiah have a couple and he was OK too, though he also had no ambition to get up.

We slept through the night with no problems and felt fine the next morning. Isaiah actually went to school. I, however, had a doctor's appointment. It had nothing to do with the illness of the day before. It had been set up as a three week follow up to my visit to the doctor's office on the first Monday of the year.

I had been to the phlebotomist the week before and my panels showed that my liver was perfect- as was my blood pressure. That made me feel pretty good until the doctor cleared his throat and began talking about something called cholesterol... Anyway, I am in decent health. I just need a bit of a tweak and I'll be ship shape.

Though my appointment was in the morning, I'd taken the whole day off work since I had a different matter I had planned on attending to that afternoon, but it involved a lot of talking so it was out. Remember I couldn't speak above a whisper and even that was a chore.

I was glad I had the whole day off, too. I was still a little tired and I had no desire to spend the whole day whispering to everybody about why I was whispering (though I spent Tuesday doing just that despite the fact that the first thing I did when I got to my desk was write "I'm not ignoring you- I lost my voice" and then in smaller letters below that "OK, Maybe I am ignoring you but I DID lose my voice" on my whiteboard).

As far as weekends go, I've had better. But, then, I've had worse, too, and not very long ago. I'd rather not have spent thirty hours straight in bed, but having Isaiah next to me (and quiet and still- mostly) made it a little less lonely and dull.