Sick Days

No parent enjoys dealing with a sick kid.  Dealing with a sick gifted kid has challenges all their own.
Bug has had strep throat five times so far this school year.  This case is especially difficult because it has been combined with the seasonal flu.  He has been home from school for a week at this point and I am wondering when he'll ever get better enough to go back to class.
The school (and the doctor) require 24 hours fever free without the assistance of any fever reducers.  So far, we haven't had a fever free night.  Granted the last couple days haven't been terrible but each night his fever goes up and during the day although he is hacking and coughing, he is fever free.
I know he is going stir crazy.  Over the last couple days I have taught him to crochet (every young man should know at least one dying art that has primarily been "women's work").  Baking is another skill set I enjoy sharing with him but flu season isn't conducive to making tasty treats......Lysol tainted  gingersnaps just don't sound appealing.
He is making some afghan squares for a charity project I happened upon at the craft store the other day and that has kept him somewhat busy.  Of course, he is also filling in time with his make up school work but I worry he is rotting his brain on video games and cartoons.
I want to keep his mind stimulated but when your child is sick it's hard to put too many demands on them.
The first five days he was on the couch barely sitting up to take his medicine and drink a some juice but now he is feeling better and yet not totally over the sickness.
It sucks!  It sucks for him and it sucks for me.
I'm on can number three of Lysol, I've cleaned puke off the living room carpet and have fallen behind on my laundry duties(the last load got musty in the washer because I never transferred them to the dryer).  I feel overwhelmed by all the late nights sleeping with one eye open in fifteen minute increments with my hand on his chest making sure he isn't too hot and keeping up on my responsibilities at work on a couple hours sleep.
It is daunting.
All parents deal with it.  I know, it isn't any different than anyone else's experiences with a sick kid at home.
I ask, do all kids look at you after three days of no solid food and proclaim that they are going to die?  That humans can't live without eating?
Do they go into a thirty minute monologue on the ravages the streptococcal virus has on a growing heart and how he'll most likely suffer heart disease by the time he is fifty?
Have you ever heard about an eight year old who researched tonsillectomies and the probability that he will have a re-occurrence of the strep infection with or without his tonsils?
I tie most of his idiosyncrasies to his giftedness but maybe just maybe he is simply  a little dramatic.

Either way, he is so funny.  I can't help but smile when he goes on and on.  I smile when I think about how he can amuse himself for hours with just some yarn and a crochet hook because although it is hard and no one wants to see their lil guy suffer,these days together are memories in the making and I hope he remembers the little things like me making his soup (vegan chicken noodle) and not the burrito I thought would be fine right up until he threw up all over the living room floor, that I hope he forgets.