Roller Coaster

I was about to say that last week was largely uneventful (which is not a bad thing) until yesterday.
The week had gone fairly routinely with more showings of our home (I pray this comes to a close soon because it’s beginning to tell on my kids what with the disruptions and all), the weekly youth programs, football practice on Tuesday, the occasional character building chats and stories with the kids, making lunch and rushing everybody off to bed at nights inter alia; until Saturday morning when Danju woke up with, wait for it – sore throat and a headache. Oh dear! Not at this time with the threat of the swine flu now christened H1N1 flu after protestations from pig farmers for a name change because their sales were plummeting.
Papa had his football practice scheduled for Saturday at midday so I had to take Danju promptly to a walk-in clinic. The doctor saw nothing to worry about (don’t they often say that to you only to recant if you threatened to seek a second opinion?) and just took some swab for the lab. To deal with the sore throat, Danju has been gargling with saline solution and sucking on minty hard candies.
Papa’s football practice then followed and it was drills and practicing plays- running the ball and a couple of throws. As a running back, he’s in the thick of things and took a few hard tackles.
Today being the first Sunday in the month was to be our usual Mass in Igbo ( an activity which our community in Toronto began some 2+ years ago that helps with ensuring a sustenance of our mother tongue and an opportunity for bonding as well). We were all looking forward to it.
It was therefore unexpected when Papa started running a temperature late on Saturday night and in spite of a cold bath and Tylenol, it just would not subside.
Needless to say he hardly slept a wink and so did ‘old ranger’. Implicit in that therefore ( a line that I have borrowed from one of my old undergraduate teachers) was that we could not go for the Igbo Mass. In its place we were at the emergency ward of the Oakville hospital. As fate would have it, a childhood friend (T-baz) was scheduled to visit with us in Oakville today so he unwittingly had to be part of the train that hit the emergency ward.
Once we arrived the hospital, the usual inquisition began. Had we visited Mexico in recent times? Had we been in contact with someone who may have visited Mexico recently? Had we been to a pig farm farm in Alberta (where it is alleged, a man had infected some pigs on the farm. Funny it was a man infecting pigs and not the other way round) Our answers were negative and yet because my little guy was running a temperature and by this time had began coughing a bit, a face mask was quickly handed to him. Could we have suddenly become another statistic for this flu? I reject it in Jesus’ name! (apologies to Nigerian new generation churches)
Tests after tests were run and a chest x-ray was quickly done. To our relief, it was nothing but a minor viral infection and we were let go but requested to get some cough medicine and some rest.
My baby boy is now sleeping and so are Sampi (the only woman standing) and Danju (who it seems is back to his usual self). Siya of course is still in Edmonton but had been on the phone many times today and for long periods as we waited at the emergency triage.

So here we are. I am tired and my bed calls. We’d keep communicating.