Rebecca Lang, “The 9 Circles of Hell: When the Stomach Flu Hits Your Family” (2016)
“Dante’s epic poem Inferno may have imagined nine circles of hell, but there’s no need for parents to break out our high school text books to refresh ourselves on this classic. We already know what it is to experience hell: it’s when the entire family comes down with the stomach flu.
“Even the healthiest among us can expect a bout of this nasty bug to run through our house every few years, and if the stomach flu passes us over, then we’re bound to catch an equally awful and contagious virus in its place. No matter the cause, the downward spiral and steep climb out after the family is taken down by a bad bug falls into nine circles of hell that I like to call ‘Domestic Infirmo.’ […]” —Rebecca Lang, “The 9 Circles of Hell: When the Stomach Flu Hits Your Family,” ParentCo. (November 29, 2016)
Rebecca Lang is a San Francisco-based blogger for ParentCo. The nine “circles” of her stomach flu hell include awareness, denial, anticipation, infection, and so on.
Sighting Citation:
“Rebecca Lang, “The 9 Circles of Hell: When the Stomach Flu Hits Your Family” (2016).” Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Elizabeth Coggeshall and Arielle Saiber, eds. September 19, 2025. https://www.dantetoday.org/sightings/rebecca-lang-the-9-circles-of-hell-when-the-stomach-flu-hits-your-family-2016/.Related Sighting
Sarah Harris, “Mommy’s Inferno” (2020)