The Norovirus That Wasn’t… Or Was It?

Ugh, I don’t know where he gets this energy, I thought to myself, watching Lou sprint through the hallways of a nearby public high school. I say “sprint,” but I actually don’t know that that’s the best word to describe whatever it was he was doing. It was like high knees meets lateral slides meets some sort of dinosaur march that he does at circle time at school.

But he was doing it at full speed. And snarling while doing so.

It was a Sunday evening and we were at one of Nate’s club basketball tournaments for a 6pm game. Sam had his final basketball game of the season a few hours before, at 3pm, so instead of going home, we scooted over to a pizza place that was halfway between the two schools for an early dinner. 

In fact, we were literally the only people there. We had no fewer than four waitresses and one bartender tending to us, practically a one to one ratio. We ordered two medium pizzas and Tighe and I each had a salad. It’s important to note that my salad had chicken and Tighe’s did not. 

We arrived at Nate’s game early, but since it’s a huge school with several gyms, there were lots of other basketball games happening to help us kill the time. 

One girl’s game in particular was getting heated. It was standing room only in there, so we stood in the doorway at the edge of the court, Tighe and I both getting sucked into the drama, musing at a handful of parents, all people we didn’t know, lose their cool. 

Over a sixth grade girl’s game. 

Tess and Nate were also entranced. Nate loved the intensity. As the time ticked down, each whistle blow was a make-or-break moment for both teams. 

[Little aside from my soapbox: this is why I think basketball is such a great sport! You get the team aspect—cohesiveness, working together, being a part of something big, sharing accountability and accolades. But you also get the individual piece—the mental toughness it takes to stand at the free throw line and have the pressure of a W or L all on your shoulders. So many life lessons learned in sports. Sign your kids up TODAY! Sam’s rebuttal to be published at a later date.]

Anyway, back to the game.

Tess was entranced for a different reason. I think she’s genuinely in awe of girls who play sports. Somehow, despite literally spending her whole life on lacrosse fields, soccer fields, basketball courts and more, she’s still confused about why anyone would choose to participate in such an enterprise. Especially girls. So she’s taking it all in, noting their hairstyles, the way they wear their uniforms, how they interact with each other. 

I really don’t know if she’ll ever be an athlete—though she definitely has potential—but she definitely pays more attention to the girls’ games than the boys’. Even her own brothers. Actually, especially her own brothers. 

But where were Sam and Lou? I wondered, suddenly snapping back to the moment.

As soon as I said that, my ankle nearly gave out from under me as Lou tackled Sam right between my legs and began pummeling him with punches. He had Sam pinned to the hardwood floors of the gym and the blond strands on the top of his head were practically touching the sideline.

“Oooh, he strong!” the man standing next to me said, switching his focus from the very tight basketball game to the very tight wrestling match at our feet. 

Despite their sixish year age gap, Lou overpowers Sam every time. Partly because Sam doesn’t want to fight back and hurt Lou, but also because Lou really is strong. 

Sam survives on takis, hot sauce, and apple slices while Lou drinks protein shakes and eats anything we put on his plate. His favorite dinner? Ribs. He requests them every night. Sam’s arms and legs look like drinking straws and Lou’s are like muscular tree trunks. 

Writhing around on the ground together, their entwined limbs took out my leg again, at which point I was fed up. I dragged them just a few feet from the gym out to the hallway. I didn’t need parent spectators who were already fired up and dropping profanity turning their grievances on Sam and Lou.

A bench lined one wall of the very wide hallway, which was great because the gray Adidas leggings I was wearing were starting to bother me. They’re high-waisted and kind of tight, so I rarely wear them, and as I rested on the bench, I was starting to remember why.

I groaned in gastro-intestinal discomfort as Sam and Lou continued wrestling along the wall of lockers across from me. I could feel my bloated stomach start to put pressure on my linea alba, which in turn, puts pressure on my lower back. Thanks, six pregnancies.*

So sitting down, releasing the pressure on my torso, was a nice treat. 

As Nate’s game got ready to start, I kept the kids in the hallway. The gym was pretty tight, and there wasn’t a lot of spectator seating. Let them wrestle and do these weird, jurassic agilities out in this larger space, away from people.

I was also still uncomfortable. I couldn’t decide whether I was gassy and bloated from my oddly timed dinner of pizza and salad or my leggings were just constricting my stomach. 

And was I nauseous? I couldn’t tell, but the uncertainty and distress was enough to dampen my mood. Usually I love watching my kids play sports, not just because it makes me proud, but also because it’s usually fun to hang with other parents in the stands. 

But tonight, I just wasn’t feeling it. The thought of forced banter and gregariousness seemed exhausting to me. I wanted to get out of my leggings and onto the couch. Perhaps even into bed. It’s my favorite place. 

Stalling to go in cost me one thing: a seat in the stands. 

Which was good and bad. Bad because I yearned to sit. But good because of my darkening, suddenly antisocial mood.

And my mood was about to get darker because of Sam and Lou.

Those two.

Since there were no seats, Tighe and another dad stood along the baseline, just a few yards from the basket, and I squatted in the corner. Have you ever done a “yoga for digestion” routine, where it’s just a series of squats and twists in an attempt to squeeze air out of your intestines? That’s how I’d describe my posture for the first half of the game.

And only the first half because I left at halftime. 

Tess spent the first half sauntering in and out of the gym, rolling her eyes at the game itself each time she returned, as if to say “Ugh, I can’t believe this is why we’re here.” In retrospect, I have no idea what she was doing, but she probably took five or six trips in those 20ish minutes of play. 

Lou and Sam, on the other hand, found some metal folding chairs in the corner and dragged them out to sit on. And by “sit,” I mean “use as props.”

In fact, they alternated between sitting upright, as one is intended to do on a chair, crawling under the chair, crawling under the other person’s chair, climbing on top of the other person seated in their chair, and more. 

At one point, I glanced over and Lou was seated correctly with his hands folded in his lap, his eyes fully focused on the game. Nate’s game. He loves to cheer for Nate and his friends. 

Lou’s engagement gives me a sudden sense of ease, not necessarily for my stomach and GI issues, but at least I didn’t feel like we were in the way and annoying other spectators. Which is how I usually feel.

But then I looked at Sam, who had somehow contorted himself to “sit” inverted on the chair. His knees were bent over the back of it, his back pressed along the seat, and his head dangling off, all of his fine blond hairs pointed towards the ground. 

How the heck does he function in school, you may be asking yourself. 

Peering into his very large nostril, which was uncomfortably close to my face, I wondered the exact same thing. But pretty well, apparently. We’ve never had a single behavioral issue with him and his standardized test scores—though admittedly a relatively useless metric—are pretty stinkin’ good.

All indicators point to a thriving third-grade student that excels for seven hours a day, five days a week. 

So why can he not sit through an hour-long basketball game? And really, it’s only two twenty-minute halves in most of these tournaments. 

As the whistle blew, I shifted my focus from his nostril back to the game. The other team was really good, and though the score was close, Nate’s team was not playing well. The basketball fervor helped distract me from Sam’s and Lou’s derangement and my own tummy issues.

Until a moment or two later when I heard the unmistakable sound of metal on wood and I looked up to see Sam and Lou dragging their chairs across the gym floor and towards the exit.

A flashback of WWF “chair matches” suddenly triggered my propensity for parental micromanagement, which is normally nonexistent.

“I’m out of here! Taking them with me!” I called to Tighe, pulling the chairs from the boys’ grips and thanking God that we took two cars.

Tess was just returning from one of her jaunts into the hallway when I grabbed her sleeve. 

“Come on, we’re leaving. Get your coat.”

I didn’t need to tell her twice. Stay in a hot, stuffy gym to watch her brother play a sport she didn’t like? Or retreat home, where she could have ice cream, crawl into her pajamas, and start a movie? 

She was on my heels, down the long hallway, in no time.

The next few hours were a blur, but I can tell you what I remember.

We drove home. It was already dark. My nausea was very real, not imagined. But I distracted myself by whimsically, almost impulsively, changing radio stations and answering Sam’s non-stop questions about the legality of various actions. I don’t know whether to worry about that conversation or not, but since it was mostly about what entails a criminal action for a cop, I think we can shelve the worry for a later date.

When we arrived home, I promised ice cream to anyone who got into pj’s and joined me on the couch, which was the only place I wanted to be. 

I don’t remember what we watched, but I do remember that the kids’ dessert was making me nauseous—a major red flag for me since I have a pretty strong sweet tooth—and Lou was rubbing my back and asking if I was okay. His ability to empathize (or maybe sympathize?) far exceeds everyone else’s in that house.

There was vomiting. A lot of it. Other stuff, too, out the other end. You know what I mean. As one of my mom friends puts it, “a touch of D.” Except it was more than a touch.

When Tighe got home, he put everyone to bed and finished the laundry that I was too sick to deal with. I thanked God that he hadn’t left me yet. On a normal day, I take my happy marriage for granted, but in moments of sickness, when parenting from the bathroom floor in front of the toilet would be nearly impossible, I’m really grateful to have him.

I showered, got into bed, and slept a restless sleep. I never developed a fever and though I never threw up again, the nausea woke me several times during the night. I just felt sick and unsettled. 

By morning, I felt pretty good. Tired and weak, but no longer sick.

And everyone else?

I guess it’s still too early to say with confidence, but no one else has gotten sick yet. It’s been a solid four days. Which makes me wonder: was it the notorious norovirus that’s been circulating KC and the rest of the country? Or was it food poisoning from the chicken on my salad at the pizza place? Or some third option? Did Sam roofie me and that’s why he wanted insight into the criminal justice system?

A day or two later, Tighe told me he wasn’t “confident in his stomach,” so I stayed home from bunko so he wouldn’t have to take care of kids while sick. But other than that, we’ve had a pretty healthy, norovirus-free week. 

Knocking on all kinds of wood right now and praying to all the Gods and gods I can think of!

*I count my two miscarriages when I’m measuring the “damage” pregnancy has done to my body. Mostly because I gained a full first-trimester’s worth of weight with the second one, and I was exceedingly nauseous for 11 straight weeks.