A Caravan, Six People, and a Porridge Incident

There’s a special kind of hell that arrives in winter. It’s called Influenza A. It doesn’t just make you sick — it invades your home and turns your family into zombies. And I don’t mean the fun, slow ones in movies. I mean the kind who stare blankly, mumble incoherently, and seem entirely unaffected by the fact that their body is on fire with fever.

In our tiny caravan, six of us became victims and heroes in one uncomfortable, fevered tableau. Two little ghosts — my toddlers — burning at 40.4°C, their tiny bodies writhing and whimpering as I tried to soothe them, feed them, and keep them alive. Two teenagers, who had perfected the fine art of ignoring human contact and declaring their emotional and physical independence simultaneously. And me? I was the unacknowledged general of this virus-driven army, my head pounding like a jackhammer, my limbs heavy with exhaustion, my soul crying out for a single, uninterrupted nap.

My husband, bless him, had a different strategy. He… disappeared. Slept. Reappeared briefly to mutter something about needing food or water, then vanished again. A hero in his own mind, but certainly not in the trenches.
The only time I laughed — I mean, truly, uncontrollably, gut-hurting laughed —was during the great porridge incident. My husband decided, in a fit of bravery or delusion, to make himself porridge. The smell alone was criminal. He stirred, he tasted, he gagged, and then he threw it in the rubbish bin. “Who loves porridge, right?!” “Me.” Smiling.

That small, absurd spectacle — the horror, the disgust, the utter ridiculousness of it — was a moment of light in a fevered world. For a few minutes, I forgot that I wanted to strangle him gently, and we shared a human moment again.
And slowly, mercifully, we emerged. Fevers broke, heads stopped pounding, and the caravan felt a little less like a viral prison. We smiled at each other, tentatively at first, then more freely. Tiny, victorious smiles that said: we survived.

In the aftermath, I realized that surviving Influenza A isn’t just about medicine or rest. It’s about laughter, absurdity, and the quiet heroism of simply showing up. It’s about making porridge (or watching someone fail at it), staying awake long enough to soothe a feverish child, and sharing the unspoken bond of exhaustion and relief.
Life goes on. The caravan is still small. The toddlers are still tiny dictators. The teenagers are still experts in avoidance. But we survived. And sometimes, that is more than enough.

This Is My Takeaway: Seven Days of Zombie Fever

Seven days. That’s 168 hours, give or take. 168 hours of letting go of everything that usually seems important. Of abandoning normal rules and surrendering to new ones: sleep whenever the tiny dictator allows it, drink water and tea like your life depends on it — because it does.

Cook chicken soup. Chop it, stir it, pack it in little containers, and heat it whenever you can. You will need it.

Eat fresh. Taste it. Feel it. That sensation is pure joy in a world of fever.

Pour your love into everything you do. I know you won’t get it back immediately — toddlers don’t work that way, zombies certainly don’t — but that doesn’t matter. They need it.

Move slowly. Laugh at the absurd. Cry if you must. Hold hands. Don’t hold grudges. Survive. That’s enough.

And when the fevers finally break, when heads stop pounding, when tiny victorious smiles appear — you notice it. Life isn’t the same as before, but it’s still yours. And yes, even your husband —who bravely battled porridge only to lose — still makes you laugh. Somehow, surviving it all feels like triumph.

Who relates with that?!

Love, Stefanie Anna