"If he has trouble breathing, bring him in immediately," the nurse practitioner said earlier today. Or was it yesterday? I’m so tired. I’m typing in the dark, watching Charlie sleep. Listening to his breathing. It’s 3:56 am.

I’m fully dressed in middle of the night emergency attire. Yankees baseball cap to cover bed head and big bags under my eyes. Wrinkled first-I-could-find shirt probably on backwards. I’m writing to stay awake. 30 minutes ago I carried Charlie’s burning body downstairs and got ready to take him to the ER. He was glassy-eyed with a very high fever and coughed a horribly painful cough when he tried to speak. We looked at each other nervously.

We were doing our rounds, Susanne and I, shooting grape-flavored Motrin into the mouths of our two other kids.

Three kids with the swine flu.

Charlie is propped up on the couch and sleeping well at the moment. The ER is on hold for now. Don’t think I can keep eyes open much longer. No ketones and decent blood sugar thanks to some aggressive basal adjustments and an injection when he was high before bedtime. I shutter to think of how he would be if he had large ketones on top of everything else. Yesterday, the pediatrician prescribed Tamiflu (which was actually hard to find as it’s flying off the shelves around here). The endo agreed, then said no and then said "well, OK." I wish someone had a clue. We went with our gut and gave him the Tamiflu.

No, this is not just like the usual seasonal flu with a different name like so many people are saying. This flu is very, very nasty. I’ve never seen my kids this miserable. They look terrible.

It’s scary.

5:01 am. I must sleep now.