Flu: The Single Parents Worse Nightmare

If you’re wondering why it’s been quiet on the Mummy and Boo front it’s because we’re sick, mark our door with a red x and steer clear. Boo’s just getting over pneumonia – it’s her first of the season which considering her health hurdles is great and shows how well the prophylaxis antibiotics are working. And for me well according to the GP today I have real life actual flu.

After feeling horrible for the past ten days I decided to ring the doctors to see if I could get an appointment this side of Christmas, so you can imagine how shocked I was when I was told to pop down half and hour later. Fast forward to seeing the GP and after a million and one questions he diagnosed me with flu. I laughed, don’t be silly I said, I’ve had the flu jab, he just smiled and said true but you still have the flu.

I was offered a two week sick note and advised to have a minimum of five days bed rest; then I really started to laugh. Being self employed and a single parent means there are no sick days or time off. Apparently there’s no shortcut to recovering from the flu but I’ll tell you what, there’s also no shortcut to parenting on your own unless you count sacrificing the housework.

Single-Parenting-When-Ill-Sucks

So I came home from the doctors, cooked a beef casserole, cracked on with some admin, did the school run, listened to Boo tell me about her day, listen to her read (oh did I fail to mention that Boo’s totally nailed reading like a boss…BOOM), had dinner, winged it at bedtime with a completely made up story about Fifi the astronaut; and here I am sat in bed, blogging getting my prescribed bed rest.

Following doctors’ orders is all well and good until you’re a parent then you substitute bed rest for Lucozade and buckets of tea – plus the odd Karamel Stroopwafel -and the realisation that flu sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it.

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