* Warning: Vomit and Diarrhea ahead!
As the warning indicates we followed up the most perfect weekend with a not-so perfect weekend which can be summed up in one word: Norovirus.
We were in the midst of hanging out with my parents Wednesday night (to pick up a car to borrow while ours was in the shop) when Abby walked across the dining room floor, looked at me, and promptly threw up her breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Since she'd been her normal, happy self during the day I figured she must have eaten the dog's food or, heaven help us, gotten into the cat's litter box. As both of those would cause me to throw up I thought we were one and done. So we got her a quick bath and were planning on heading home to spend the evening pampering her before putting her to bed. However, fifteen minutes later Abby threw up again. I had a sneaky suspicion that we were in for a long night so I picked her up, got her in to the car, and raced home knowing that the drive was fifteen minutes from door-to-door. However, two blocks from home Abby threw up yet again. Fifteen minutes after that she threw up again, and so on, and so on. At 9:30pm Nate and I made the decision to take Abby in to the Emergency Room as she'd been throwing up bile every fifteen minutes for the past two hours, had promptly thrown up any liquids we'd try to give her, and overall was not showing any signs of improvement.
When we arrived at the ER our check-in nurse mentioned that we were about the 10th family bringing in a small child with vomiting issues. (Turns out the whole state has been inflicted by this nasty bug!) In a perverse way we were happy that so many children were being seen because Abby would be diagnosed and treated quickly and we could get back on home. Oh, how little did we know! To make a long story short Abby was committed to throwing up. Over the course of four hours Abby went through two doses of oral anti-nausea and one anti-nausea suppository before we, and the doctors/nurses, agreed that she was dehydrated enough that an IV line was necessary to get her healthy. At that point we were "in for a penny, in for a pound" so we also okay'd a blood draw and a catheter for a urine analysis to rule out any sort of infection that might be assisting in keeping her sick.
Abby surprised us at how well she did for such invasive actions. She whimpered and fussed a bit when the IV line was going in but then took a page from my book and started becoming interested in watching the nurses work on her arm instead of crying over what they were doing. You could just see her little brain trying to figure out how the blood came out of her arm, why the tubes were there, and how they were wrapping the bandage around her arm. She is a mini-me at times. The catheter was less fun and she rightfully cried during that one but soon was back to wanting to curl up next to us and go to sleep. During the hour while we were waiting to see if the IV meds would work I got an opportunity to just stare in wonder at my beautiful daughter. It's not too often that I get to watch her sleep now a days so being able to just watch her was a blessing in this nasty time. She has the prettiest rose pink lips that have a gorgeous bow to them. And her skin is so pale and perfect. I loved this little bit of cuddle time that I normally don't get, I just wish it was under better circumstances. Finally we did our last food test (making sure she could keep stuff down) and at 3:45am we were discharged.
The next day I woke up to find Nate and Abby sleeping on the couch. It's so true that the less sleep a child gets the less sleep they get. You'd think she'd want to sleep in until noon after being up seven or so hours past her bedtime, but the girl was up at 7:30am like usual. I took over and Nate went back to sleep. Thursday saw a much better day than Wednesday as Abby only threw up once and only had one round of diarrhea, although the stinker refused to go to bed until almost 10pm. The next morning I got up with Abby who decided to have a little bit more fun and promptly threw up all over me and my bed, but a few loads of laundry (and a shower!) later and we were doing just fine.
Nate, however, was not. He woke up Friday morning feeling a little queasy and stomach upset and it went downhill from there. I spent all day Friday and pretty much all day Saturday cleaning up and taking care of Abby, Nate, and the house. Our washing machine ran constantly from Thursday on as we were still in need of cleaning up all the yuck from Abby when this illness first hit us, the house looked like a whirlwind had hit it as Kleenexes, goldfish crackers, blankets, sippy cups, soup bowls, water glasses were everywhere, and anyone who called to check in on us also made sure to stay far, far away.
So here we are on Sunday and it's been 48 hours since our last incident. The laundry is almost caught up, the house is back to being it's normal clean self, Abby is back to running around and giggling, Nate is back to working and doing his man things, and me....well, I'm exhausted. :-) So far, knock on wood, I haven't managed to catch this bug and I'm praying and hoping it stays that way.
I have learned my lesson, however, in being very, very careful when talking about the awesomeness of a weekend. Next time I do I'll make sure I stock up on food, laundry detergent, and Kleenex beforehand!
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| Since no blog post is a good one without pictures, here's a recent one of Abby eating frosting 'batter' for our Christmas cookies. She was such a good helper that day! |
