Family Snippets - 17. On Vacation: Seriously Sick

It has become almost a family tradition that someone has to get sick while on holidays. It started the first time we took Colin to the Gold Coast in Queensland when he was only one-year-old, and he came down with croup.

Since then both Andrew and Colin have had either asthma attacks or croup almost every holiday. Croup mainly affects the very young, Colin hadn’t had an asthma attack for a couple of years, and Andrew has been taking preventers for asthma, we were hopeful that this holiday would be different.

Janine had started the holiday with laryngitis, but that barely counted. Indeed, if I were a cynic I would say that starting the holiday without Janine being able to speak was almost a blessing, but I’m too smart to actually say that.

Instead, about half way through our holiday on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, we realised that both of our boys had serious, in one case life-threatening, illnesses.

We picked up the problem with Andrew first. We’d been going from our holiday unit to the main beach at Noosa. It was a hot day so we stopped off to buy the boys an ice-cream each before we finished our trip to the beach.

“You can have two flavours,” the kindly shop assistant informed us.

“I’ll have the vanilla and the strawberry,” Colin announced.

“That’s raspberry,” I explained gently.

“Whatever,” he replied with a shrug.

I turned to Andrew.

“What would you like?”

“I’ll have chocolate,” he said firmly.

“And what else?”

“Chocolate.”

“You can have two flavours. What would you like to go with the chocolate?”

“Chocolate.”

That was then I realised that Andrew suffers from a serious illness that will probably be with him for the rest of his life:

Andrew is a chocoholic.

The signs had been there for a long time, but Janine and I had not allowed ourselves to realise what they meant. The insistence on having a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for his birthday. Chocolate flavoured milk was one of his favourite drinks. When we bought iced donuts, he always at the icing off the chocolate ones. “Chocolate” was even one of the words that he recognised, though he’s too young to read very much.

While ordering his double-chocolate ice-cream, I sadly stared down at my youngest son. I’d never heard of a cure for chocoholic-ism, so this was a disability he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life. With care, he’ll be able to live a normal and productive life, but he’ll always have this deep secret that he’ll have to manage.

Sighing sadly, I watched as my two sons finished their ice-creams. I wondered if Andrew’s illness would have any appreciable impact on Colin, but I decided it was unlikely. To the best of my knowledge, chocoholic-ism isn’t contagious, so, after a quiet word with Janine, we decided we would still treat the two boys the same as we’d always done. All we can do is to keep an eye on Andrew’s chocolate intake.

We spent the next couple of hours on the beach. The boys had a wonderful time playing in the surf and sand. As they only get to go to the beach when we are on holidays, which is usually only once a year, it’s a real treat for them.

Afterwards, we decided to have lunch at the Surf Life Saving Club before catching the bus back to our unit. That was when we realised that Colin was also seriously ill.

I’d just ordered our lunch and sat down at the table overlooking the beach, when Colin spoke up.

“Where’s our lunch?”

“I’ve ordered it and when it’s ready, they’ll bring it out to us.”

“What if they forget?”

“They won’t forget, Colin. Don’t worry about it.”

“But, what if they do?”

“Then we’ll go up and politely ask where our lunch is, and they’ll get it for us.”

“But, what if they’ve run out of what we asked for?”

“Then they’ll tell us and we’ll order something else.”

“But, what if they’ve run out of everything?”

“Then we’ll just go somewhere else where they haven’t run out.”

“But, what if everyone has run out of food?”

That was when it finally clicked.

Colin was suffering from acute what-if-itis.

This was concerning. What-if-itis can be fatal in some circumstances. It’s not a life-long illness, like chocoholic-ism, but Colin runs a serious risk of being throttled by whoever he is talking to. I had already struggled to restrain myself from throwing him off the balcony, and who knows how long this illness would last for. With every conversation, he ran the risk of being killed.

“If everyone has run out of food, then we’ll have to go hungry,” I replied to his last question, hoping that this would end the chain of questions and responses.

There was silence for several seconds and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief, but I was too soon.

“What are those people doing?” Colin asked, pointing to the beach.

“They’re surfing,” I answered, thinking this was a safe response.

“What if a shark or monster comes along?”

“Then the lifeguards would get everyone out of the water.”

“But, what if the monster comes out of the water?”

“Then the lifeguards would clear the beach.”

“What if the monster rushed out before everyone had gotten away, and starting killing everyone?”

I attempted to give a response that would make it difficult for him to continue with another what-if, while wondering if it was possible to get professional training on dealing with this problem.

“Then Daddy would take lots of photos and sell them to the media.”

“But, what if no-one wants the photos?”

This stunned me. While struggling to imagine a world where the media would not be interested in photos of a hideous monster that had stormed out of the sea and started killing people, I had to admire Colin’s imagination. Once he was over this illness, I could see he had great potential. He could be a famous author, a lawyer, a political speechwriter, or any other job that relies on the ability to create fiction.

Luckily, I didn’t have to come up with an answer as our lunch arrived at that point. A steak sandwich for me, chicken nugget and chips were placed in front of the boys, and Janine had a plate of fish and chips.

Colin looked at his mum.

“Mummy, what if you turn into a fish?”