When viruses attack!

I promised the story of the virus to end all viruses.  Here it is, but be warned: it's not for the faint of heart.  Or the weak of stomach.  Or the delicate of sensibilities.  (Or anyone, really, but it's what I've got!)

Two weeks ago, the boys and I were over at our friend's house for our weekly "our husbands are too busy" consolation dinner.  We get together once a week on the day our husbands have to be at church meetings late and have dinner and let the kids play and generally enjoy ourselves on what would otherwise be a pretty un-fun evening.  It's great!

At some point, her two year old daughter had a massive diaper blowout, the kind of mess that you find up a child's back and smeared across something important, in this case, the couch.  Her son and Toddler E pointed out the mess to us and we set about immediately cleaning up.  My friend took the baby to the back for a full body scrub down, and I attacked the couch with all the upholstery friendly cleaning supplies I could find, both of us remarking as we went that this particular poop explosion was very odd looking.  (Cue foreboding music here.) After we were all cleaned up, we finished fixing dinner, ate, and said our goodbyes.

Two days after that, at another church function, her son threw up. (Music gets louder.) The next morning, so did Toddler E.  (Music climaxes.)  That same day, both my friend and I felt sick, like we had been run over by trucks sick, like we couldn't stay awake sick.  We spent the next two days nursing sick kids and trying not to vomit ourselves. 

We congratulated ourselves on making it through the weekend, or at least I did, until the husband got sick.  Very sick.  For a week straight.  And when the husband is sick, it's really pathetic.  He is a good patient, but his patience was tried by the unending nature of his illness.  He was even contemplating missing church, which is unheard of, but by Sunday he was feeling much better, so he went.  We all did, happy to be out from under the virus.

Except that during Sacrament meeting, J said "I have to go potty" with an urgency that alarmed me.  You know how sometimes when you look at your child, something in the face tells you something is very, very wrong, often before the child even knows it is?  He had one of those looks.  48 hours later, he was still sick, lethargic from all the fluids he'd lost, listless because he felt so bad, and not a happy camper.  He pulled himself together enough that I sent him to school, but, in fact, he was still feeling so bad he had a meltdown of epic proportions and I had to bring him home, at which point he fell immediately asleep.

And now, today, he feels 90% better...and I feel 50% worse.  Will it never end??  At some point in there, when I was symptomatic the first time, I had an already scheduled visit with the GI doc and he just called yesterday to tell me I was bacteria free, confirming my suspicion that this is just the worst. virus. ever.