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The following is a story of Voltron I made up based on the T.V. cartoon Voltron by World Events Productions. I did not have World Events Productions' permission to do the story and therefore it does not have World Events Productions' endorsement.

Allura woke up late the next morning to Mark’s crying. It was sure nice for her to sleep in! Though she didn’t think she had slept much that night because of all the Coca-Cola she had drank through the night (two, 12 oz. Bottles), she still felt pretty well rested. When she was awake during the night and wasn’t in the bathroom or drinking Coke, she was just lying there so it was almost the same as sleeping.

Soon after Allura had Mark changed and dressed and ready for the day along with herself, there was a knock at the door. She let the person in and it was Lance.

“Yeah, she started to get it in the middle of the night I guess, and now she’s laid up in bed. Keith won’t be stopping in anytime soon he’s been flooded with a whole bunch of extra duties to do. The castle staff can’t keep up with getting all of Nanny’s chores done so Keith is helping out. He’s given strict orders to the rest of us not to try helping out. When it comes to domestic chores, he’s afraid we’ll botch things up and he doesn’t want to hear about it from Nanny later when she’s feeling better.”

“No, Hunk’s fine. Good thing too. I’d hate to see him with stomach flu! Well, just checking in on ya to make sure you’re doin’ OK. Now I better get back and see if Coran and Tammy need help or something.”

The thought did cross Allura’s mind that at least now Nanny knew how she had felt the night before. In fact, Allura thought it a little humorous that Nanny had gotten sick. It was almost as if Nanny had gotten her just desserts. But Allura didn’t laugh or even smile about it. Having the stomach flu was too awful an experience to her to be funny.

That day both Allura and Mark ate a little for breakfast and a little for an afternoon meal. Then for an evening meal the table was looking a little sparse. Both Hunk and Lance didn’t show up. They both had stomach flu!

It surprised Allura that so many people were getting sick. It didn’t surprise her that Hunk was sick since he did eat the rest of her spaceballs, but it did seem odd that Nanny and even Lance were sick. She wondered to herself where Mark could have gotten it. She came up with 2 possibilities. There was the family with 7 children her and Mark had come across the day before he was sick out on the countryside having a picnic. The mother had mentioned that all 4 of her younger children had been sick with stomach flu a week ago. And the other place Mark could have gotten it from was that they had also visited a school that same day. But Allura tried to quit wondering about it. Afterall, knowing where it came from wouldn’t help anyone who was sick get better. Allura was happy to be feeling much better that day, but she was still feeling weak which surprised her. Any stomach flu she had had in the past had lasted less than a day. Even Mark wasn’t feeling all better yet and he had been the first to get it.

Allura had to feed Mark during that meal, but she didn’t mind much. Mark still wasn’t all that hungry and was doing pretty well feeding himself. So Allura still could enjoy her meal and she ate quite a bit.

After the meal Allura and Mark did retire back to their room. Keith still couldn’t come with them. There was still much he needed to get done. He was running close to going 24 hours without sleep – sort of. He had learned to become quite proficient at taking brief catnaps – a trick he learned from Coran.

Allura, though feeling much better was quite tired and so was Mark. They both went to sleep quite easily.

Commentary:
The story with me happened pretty much as how I described it happening to Allura. The next morning I did feel pretty well rested though the Coke had kept me awake as I described with Allura. The thing I mentioned about just lying still being almost the same as sleeping was either something I read about or saw on a study about sleep. For myself, I’ve found it to be pretty true. The key for me seems to be to not get uptight over the idea that I’m not getting any sleep by telling myself that lying still is almost the same thing. Then if I can make myself focus on trying to think about Voltron stories I’m writing, I relax even more and enjoy that time is going by slowly. If I can do that, I usually soon fall asleep, but in the case of being wound up on Coca-Cola during my stomach flu, it just relaxed me enough that I still felt rested by morning.

It was my dad who came by our place the next day to see how we were doing. The conversation between us pretty much went on just as how the conversation between Allura and Lance did, only Dad had informed me that my mom was sick. Also, there was no mention of what a dreadful mess it was going to be to carry on with her chores as there was in the story with Nanny's chores. Yeah, it did cross my mind that it was sort of humorous that my mom had sort of gotten her just desserts for being so unsympathetic with me the day before. But like Allura I didn't laugh or even smile about it. The thought of someone suffering with stomach flu was too awful to me to be funny.

Kyle and I did also eat a little for breakfast and for an afternoon meal. Then when I went to my parents house to make us supper, there wasn't any sign that I saw offhand of either of my parents. But then I did see them both because their bedroom door was open and they were both in bed sick with stomach flu. Dad had gotten sick shortly after dinner (afternoon meal). I then just made a supper for Kyle and myself. So in "More are Sick of It" I had Hunk and Lance both get sick shortly after the afternoon meal. They both represented pieces of things my dad had done. Lance checked on how Allura and Mark were feeling; my dad checked in on how we were. Hunk in "Getting Sicker" ate the rest of Allura's spaceball; my dad had eaten the rest of the meatball I hadn’t finished.

So one of the obvious differences between the supper I made for Kyle and I and the one in the story was that there were more people at the table in the story and another is that Allura didn’t make the meal. Another difference was that I thought that Mark would be a baby that would be good at feeding himself so I wrote him as doing that. But, when it comes to Kyle, he doesn’t feed himself well yet. He just does when he decides he wants to. He feeds himself a little bit, but likes having others feed him.

My brother had also happened to visit on what must have been Saturday night and slept in the same guest bed I had laid on to rest for a while. I saw him the next morning after Dad had told me Mom was sick. I jokingly asked if he had come home to get stomach flu. He didn’t understand why I asked that. I told him how Kyle had stomach flu and then I got it and then Mom got it. A look of dread came over his face after hearing about all of that. He wanted to know if anyone had been lying on the bed he slept in. At the time I didn’t remember and told him I didn’t think so. But really I had and Kyle might have too. After finding out, he left there as quickly as possible to try to avoid getting sick. Fortunately he didn’t. I guess the only part he fits in the story is that not everyone got sick. Also one of Dad’s friends stopped by on Monday and even Kyle still wasn’t completely well yet. I mentioned stomach flu and the same sort of look that my brother had also came over his face. He pretty quickly left the house and still was going to take his chances with talking with Dad, but felt safer doing it outside.

The part about how Allura was trying to figure out where Mark got the stomach flu in the first place was very similar to when I was trying to figure out where Kyle had gotten it. At Kyle’s sitter’s, her four younger children had gone through having stomach flu the week before. She also had seven children as I described the family on a picnic in the story. None of her older children or her or her husband had gotten it, and the longest it had lasted for any of her kids was two days for one of them. The other three were over it within a day. When Kyle was throwing up, I called a health insurance help line and was told that adults rarely get that sort of thing so it was likely that only Kyle would be sick. That sure proved to be wrong. I’m not sure at all how my mom got it unless she shared her milk with Kyle. I guess all stomach flu is a form of food poisoning so I’d think it’d need to be germs spread to food. Also on Saturday my mom brought an egg salad to a baby shower that was made of farm fresh eggs well washed after the shells had been taken off. I had touched one of the eggs after the shell was off, but my hands were unlikely to have germs on them and the eggs were well washed under hot water. Yet some people at the shower later were ill with stomach flu symptoms. But at the same time children from different schools were also getting stomach flu so it also could have been something that my aunt’s son could have brought home. In fact Kyle may have gotten stomach flu from germs I may have brought home from school. I substitute teach and get exposed to a lot of different children. But wherever it all came from, it was amazing how fast it spread. Also I finally let go trying to figure out where it came from because knowing wouldn’t make anyone well any sooner who was already sick.

And so I found this whole unpleasant stomach flu experience to be strange and interesting in a warped sort of way and decided to write about it.

[Author -- Sheila Bliss, based on the previous creation of Voltron by World Events Productions]

More are Sick of it