Fluid

So. It’s midnight and you hear a small, plaintive voice coming from the room where three of your children sleep, and that little voice says, “Mommy, Daddy, please come.”

There’s really pretty much no way that's a good sign.

And you open the door and you know immediately that you were right, that it’s not good, that it’s going to be quite a bit of trouble cleaning this mess up. I mean, I’m sorry, but when the hall light shows what seems to be a chunky floor and the air in the room seems to have been poisoned, that’s nothing but ungood.

I won’t go into too much detail, but it took quite a while to clean up, change sheets and pajamas and all that. And then wake up every time you heard the tiniest sound, every time the neighbor’s cat so much as sneezed, on edge all night, afraid it was going to all start again.

Which it did. At 5:45 the next morning. Which is when one of her sisters did the same thing.

And so followed a long, long Saturday of sipping Gatorade and munching cinnamon toast and watching cartoons as the bug made its way through their systems.

And then last night another sister got hit. And in return she hit the floor. With copious amounts of fluids. Repeatedly. Like Linda Blair. On steroids.

So now we’re waiting for the final two chillens to come down with it. We’d started to think it must have been mild food poisoning, but obviously not. Lovely.

And so we had another day of gently pushing Gatorade and building her system back up to real sustenance. And it occurred to me as I was changing a diaper last night that that’s what love is. It’s fluids.

It generally starts with swapping spit, as the younguns used to say. From there it progresses until…well, you know. Modesty and the prospect of an embarrassed and potentially ever-so-slightly angry Top Management precludes me from saying more. But additional bodily fluids are involved. [For normal humans, that is, not the sainted Top Management, who resides on a different plane altogether.]

And roughly nine months later a baby emerges. Accompanied by really remarkable amounts of bodily fluids in quantities no one ever tells you about ahead of time. Horrific quantities. As in, horror film-type quantities.

And then you spend the next two or three years getting far more intimately acquainted with the bodily fluids of this new little person than you ever could have dreamt in your wildest nightmares. Often there are bodily fluids going in to the little body, and there are always bodily fluids coming out, every damn orifice, round the clock. For years. And years. And years.

Squeamish ? You don’t get to be once you’re a parent. And you quickly learn how to just buckle down and get the hideous job done. Because, really, what choice do you have? None. So just do it.

And it doesn’t end once the potty-training kicks in. Because there are still tummy bugs and accidents and teeth knocked out and nosebleeds and stopped up toilets. Fluids, always with the bodily fluids.

And later on, down the road, hopefully far, far, far down the road, when you get towards the other end of the trip, as I understand it, for many folks it all starts again. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have loved ones around to help you out then, maybe the same ones you helped way back at the beginning of their journeys.

I remember one particularly hideous night when Max was in-patient, receiving chemo. She'd thrown up maybe seven or eight times and it was just awful. But one of our very favoritest nurses was on that night, and she was so patient, changing the sheets again and again whilst we cleaned up our poor, stoic two-year-old as best we could. And, laughing, I asked her, as I was using the waterless shampoo they had, how—given just how gross and full of disgusting stuff humans were—how on earth she could possibly do her job and yet still love people.

She stopped laughing, and looked at me seriously. Still with a small smile she said, ''That's why I do."

I really pondered that over the next few months, and I've thought about it ever since. And I'm not sure, but I think what she meant was that people are so fragile, so full of these precious bodily fluids, and yet so incredibly strong and resilient, as anyone who spent any time on a cancer ward could attest. I dunno, maybe that's not what she meant at all. But it's what I took away.

You know, when I hear about some guy who’s got seven kids by five different women or whatever, I always think, dude, that don’t make you tough. You did the easy part, the fun part. Let’s see you change two kids at the same time while a third’s asking, over and over again, for juice. Now let’s see you do that kinda thing another hundred times. That’s tough, baby.

And more than worth it. Because all them fluids are a result of, a sign of love, as is the dealing with them. And all them fluids enable you to keep on loving and being loved.

They're messy and they're smelly and they're kinda gross and they're certainly inconvenient. And they make life possible.

Just like love.

Comments

[Karen E.]

Oh, you've got me weeping. How real and true and lovely.

[Karen in TX]

Love It! Thank you!

[Lissa]

Embarrassed, yes!
Ever-so-slightly angry, no.
Saintly, bahaha.

Bawling my eyes out? Oh yes. (More fluid.)

I certainly do know how to pick a husband, that's all I can say.

[Cay in La.]

I'm printing this out to give my hubby on Father's Day.
Thanks to Karen E. for directing me here.

Well done, Scott.

And you too, Lissa. :)

[DT]

As a fella who is certifiably and hopeless squeamish, and is thoroughly skeeved out by most of the bodily fluids - good and bad - we earthlings possess, suffice it to say that I winced several times whilst reading this. Just 'cause that's the way I am. It is one of my many, many, many, many flaws.

Many.

And yet this remains one of the rarest of rare occasions - being grossed out yet so thoroughly touched, all at once. For this piece was truly a thing of beauty. Nicely done, plucky.

You know, maybe all these fluids ain't so bad after all. Makes me feel like diapering my 7-year-old tonight, just for old times sake.

And then calling his mother in to do the work.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

[KC]

This is great!!!

[Alice Gunther]

Fantastic post!

[Theresa]

Fantastic post, Scott! How do you manage to turn something disgusting (vomit) into something quite beautiful (love)? Well done!

[Jennifer]

Wonderfulness!

[Margaret in Minnesota]

It’s pretty rare to read a post that’s at once both gross and really beautiful. Well, you pulled it off, Scott, and I believe that parents around the globe will be richer for it. Just think of all the people who will be thinking of you when they clean up p*ke! Which, though I’m teasing, is to your credit—like the nurse in your story, you have given us a means to cope and the humorous encouragement that we need to get a messy job done without complaining.

[xixi]

i love how you get all moulin rouge on us at the end. Freedom! Beauty! Vomit! LOVE! So Very Awesome.

oh and just in the name of complete disclosure - i chose to read this while eating black cherry yogurt with vanilla granola and nuts mixed in. Guess what that looks like?

*continues to eat it, undaunted*

[sarah]

Right there with you. On a positive note for you, not having any furry friends at home, pet fluids are way, WAY more gross than human ones.
I do hope both bathrooms are working now.

[Suzanne]

Great post! I'm so happy to find someone writing about bodily fluids more than I do.

[Elizabeth H]

Beautiful post.
I hate to fire a Bible bullet at you, but I was reading the Easter story to my kids tonight and I was struck with all the fluid in that too. Oil, blood, water, it's all there (apart from the vom).

[Carha]

Good words.