The flu of 1980

Picture it, Colorado Springs, Dec. 1980........

Two poor young idiots (Lena and Robert) have just moved from California with their 5 month old baby, Wesley.

Robert's mom lives out there. So the entire family takes the greyhound to Colorado. They arrive in the middle of the night and no one is there to pick them up. It's freezing cold, and there is 2 feet of snow on the ground.

They stay at Robert's wonderful mother's house for a couple weeks until he gets a paycheck.
Robert's mother is a complete narcissist in a sweater pantsuit named June.

One day Robert is at work and Lena is trying to keep Wesley quiet and calm so he doesn't irritate Miss Pantsuit, Then she becomes riddled with horrendous cramps.

"Oh...lovely," she thinks "just what i need, IT!" ("It" is what my sister and I used to refer to our periods.)

She wrestles Wesley down on the bed and forces him to lay there until he screams himself to sleep so she can writhe in agony in relative peace. The agony gets worse and worse and worse.

"Holy crap, I feel like I'm in labor!" she thinks to herself.

She gets out of the bed, trying desperately not to wake up Wesley so she can go to the bathroom. "Oh F*^%$! Something is VERY wrong here."

She is hemorrhaging. She lays back down and cries until her dumb husband finally gets home.
She tells him "I need to go to the hospital NOW!" realizing that she is probably miscarrying a baby she didn't even know she was pregnant with.

Miss Pantsuit informs her son, that she "will allow him to take his miscarrying, bleeding to death wife to the hospital in her car - but only if he first goes to Safeway and gets her prescription because she has pneumonia."

So, being 21 years old and dumb... he does exactly as his narcissistic mommy tells him and goes to Safeway to get mommy's prescription while his wife sits in the car hemorrhaging and having labor pains for half an hour. (Good thing those seats were vinyl... ew!)

The young dumb couple delivers the meds to Mommy and heads off to the hospital. Leaving poor Wesley to hang out with his haggish, pneumonia stricken grandma.

Upon arrival to the hospital, they immediately whisk Lena off to an operating room for a D&C and tell her "sorry, you are losing your baby."

She gags as they yank a tube out of her throat and groggily says 'when are they gonna do it?"

"Oh , we're done honey, but we can't seem to find your husband."

*Sigh* "Try looking out in the parking lot, he's probably so worried, he's sleeping in the car."

Sure enough, that's where they found him.

Poor Lena is sent "home" right then.

Lucky for her, the very next day they are supposed to be moving into their own rental. Woo hoo!

There she is, pale, weak and devastated but hey, it's moving day! So while Robert's at work, her and Wesley move their meager possessions over to the new house. On foot.

The living room is painted silver. WTH?

They get moved in, but have to spend the night at the mother's until they come turn on the utilities. And the very next day Lena wakes up with the flu. The gas company is also supposed to come to turn on the gas.

That morning her and Wesley walk over to the new house and wait for the gas company. Flu? Yes. After pains? Yes... but thank God we're out of that witch's house!

Then the gas company comes and "red tags the water heater and the heater" instead of turning them on. red tagging them means they are not safe to turn on.

Lovely. Lena hangs up blankets all around the dining room, turns on the electric oven, swaddles Wesley in a snowsuit, and lays him in his port-a-crib and covers him up with a feather pillow.

Then she collapses on the bed herself and just lays there trying not to die for the next week from flu and miscarriage.

Robert comes home to have the flu as well.

Lena only got out of the freezing cold bed to take care of Wesley. Everyone was too damn sick to do anything about moving into a suitable home. No heat except the oven. Every trip to the freezing cold toilet was a trip to shivering hell.

The entire family is lucky to have lived through the FLU 0f 1980.

And THAT was the last time I had the flu. So all in all, as horrible as it is this time. It could be and has been worse.

Nyquil nighty...... Hope your days are all better than they could be . :)

Luv me