Colin's Traveling Flu

Erik finished pre-k a week ago. The next morning we got up at 3:00 AM, finished last minute packing, and headed to the airport by 3:40. We were on our way to Wisconsin to surprise my mom at her retirement party. I had let my Dad know we were coming, just in case mom wanted to schedule a trip out of town that weekend or something but no one else in the family knew. The plan was to hang out at my friend Katie's house that morning (our flight left DC at 6:30!! and landed in Milwaukee at 7:30) and then just show up at my mom's party at 2:00 PM. Well, flexibility when parenting is key right? About 35 minutes into our drive Erik vomited all over. Victor cleaned it all up (he's a good guy) while I tended to Erik. For a second I thought maybe it was motion sickness (although he'd taken dramamine) but my gut said he was actually not feeling well (he refused most of breakfast-very unlike him) which was proven true when I took his temp and saw he had a 101 degree fever. So now it's about 4:45 in the morning and we are 45 minutes from the airport with a febrile, vomiting child who at this point seems to have the stomach flu. We discussed turning around and taking Erik and Victor home but then we'd all miss the flight so instead we decided to keep going and figure out what to do on the way. I called the airlines and learned that of course for a fee of $75 plus any difference in the cost of flight we could hold his flight for 24 hours or cancel it (and rebook within 12 months). If we were all to cancel it would cost us $400 which didn't seem like a good idea. So we decided, if mom and dad wanted a puking febrile child in their house we would try to make it on the flight (hoping and praying Erik didn't get sick at the gate or worse, on the plane). So ruining the surprise (or just changing it a bit) I called my parents home phone at 4:00 AM their time. My Dad answered and suddenly I broke into tears explaining the situation. Apparently he wouldn't let my mom pick up the other line trying to preserve our surprise but that didn't really go over well once mom figured out it was me crying on the phone at 4:00 AM. Hahaha! So she picked up and I explained the situation to her, giving her just a slightly different surprise then we intended. We did make it to Wisconsin without anymore vomiting. There were also huge storms all the way from Chicago to Maryland that day but our flight was surprisingly smooth. Erik had high fevers for 48 hours (up to 104.1)but only threw up one more time (30 hours later). No one else caught and I am fairly confident this is a reappearance of "Colin's traveling flu". We traveled quite a bit as kids (always by car even though Colin had terrible motion sickness and terrible body awareness regarding when he might be sick). I'm only slightly traumatized. In addition to the motion sickness Colin frequently would have fevers and an upset stomach the first 2-3 days of our trip. No one else ever caught it and so eventually it seemed as though it was just stress related. Odd that you can get a high fever from stress but if Erik continues to have travel associated illness I'm going to guess it's stress related more than anything else. (This is the 3rd or 4th trip when Erik has had something just like this while traveling.) Colin is a great guy and Erik resembles him in many, many ways. Quiet, laid back, smart, stubborn (quietly), independent, kind. Victor also holds these same traits. In fact, I'm quite sure I have an idea as to what it is like to live with Colin, only a 15 year older version. Victor however, has a stomach of steel, while Colin has the opposite. I love many of the traits Erik has inherited from Colin (and of course Victor) although I'd be certainly happy to go without the puke gene. Ugh! Sure hope baby #4 doesn't get that one too!