Lock the Doors, Hide the Kids, Secure Grandma

The new fear this winter is not being defenseless against this season's flu virus-- no, not by a long shot-- it's the dreaded "Winter Vomiting Disease," Virginia Department of Health Warns.

From the Post:

For 24 to 48 hours, it lays waste to its victims.

"I was hugging the old commode," recounted Katherine Riddle of Oakton, the first in her family to fall ill in late December.

Riddle's only warning was a few minutes of dizziness while she was teaching an afternoon flute lesson at her house. "And then, boom!" she said. She ran for the bathroom and threw up. The lesson ended quickly, but her vomiting went on and on and on. "I was doing it for the rest of the night. It was incredible."

Across Northern Virginia, people have been calling in symptoms to doctors and public health departments since mid-December. Though no comprehensive numbers are available -- few jurisdictions mandate reporting of viral gastroenteritis, as physicians know it -- officials there say there seems to be no unusually high incidence this winter. Their counterparts in Maryland and the District concur.

Protracted vomiting is the virus's predominant symptom and the most distressing. It's usually accompanied by repeated diarrhea, abdominal cramps and a low-grade fever.

The virus is passed on primarily person to person, though food-borne transmission also occurs. "It's hard to get rid of because it's in the environment," said Kathy DeSnyder, an epidemiologist with the Alexandria Health Department. "You can touch a door handle and then touch your face and get it."

In 2002, such contact was one way sickness spread quite infamously on two cruise ships, affecting hundreds of passengers. And last summer -- proof that winter vomiting disease does not discriminate by season -- more than 100 teenagers attending a program at the University of Maryland at College Park became violently ill from the virus.

The keys to prevention: hand-washing -- lots of it; frequent wipe-downs of toys, doorknobs, countertops and other surfaces; and staying home until you're really well. "If you don't take the time, you will spread it," warned Lucy Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Health.

In the Riddle family, there was no stopping it. Thirty-six hours after Mom started throwing up, oldest daughter, Lisa, did the same. "One would get it," Katherine Riddle said, "and then 36 hours later, another would get it."

Dad (Paul Riddle) followed Lisa, followed by twins Jennifer (sick on Christmas at grandmother's house in Vermont) and Erica (who spent her 12th birthday vomiting). Followed by 15-year-old Emily (though about that time Grandma began heaving, too).

"It was really sequential," Riddle said. Sequential and circular. After Emily, the bug had one more hit.

"I got it twice," Mom said. "I was so lucky."