Monster Cookies

The Icky Sickies

Author: Amber

Like many other people in many parts of the world, our household has been battling illness this autumn.

On the Sunday night after Josh’s birthday party celebrations, Jon and I headed to bed early-ish, exhausted from a full day and a busy weekend. Before turning in, I did the rounds to check on the kidlets, who were all sleeping soundly. J, A and C’s room was dark, and I couldn’t hear Claire breathing, so I reached into her crib to rub her back or head to see if she’d move just a little. Well, what I felt when I reached on in was not the warm, soft blanket I was expecting, but instead, a cold gooey puddle (pile?) of vomit.

I cannot express in words the sinking feeling I had in my heart and in my stomach at that second.

First of all, I felt horrible that Claire had been sleeping in this mess, and horrible that we had tired her out so much by not putting her down for a nap that day that she didn’t wake up when she made it.

But also I felt the sinking feeling of fear. Fear that this was a bug that would need to run it’s course through our entire family of six before we’d be rid of it. One baby vomiting one time is not scary. Six people sick is a nightmare to me. The sounds, the smells, the germs, the meticulous cleaning and caring that needs to be done despite one not feeling well themself…it is enough to reduce me to sobs.

Claire threw up at least eight times that night, and as Jon held her exhausted little body, I ran up and down the stairs, from our bedroom to the the basement over and over with each new item that became soiled. All the while I was praying - hard - that it was the two birthday parties, two cakes, too many visitors, and no nap that had affected her so adversely. I wasn’t taking chances though, and I made sure to sanitize what I could and cut off the siblings from sweet baby kisses.

It seemed to work…until Friday morning. Daniel woke up to throw up. Jon quickly followed his lead. Saturday night it was Andrew’s turn, then again on Sunday morning.

I spent the week nauseous; praying that I would not throw up, but be blessed with it coming out the other end instead; sanitizing; wiping; washing; freaking out; waiting for Josh to take his turn.

Josh didn’t get sick on Sunday morning. Or Monday. Or any day after that. Maybe he’s onto something, not eating veggies.

On Tuesday, I woke up with a terrible shortness of breath and heaviness in my chest. Claire was swallowing a LOT. I got the two of us into the dr. that morning, and Jon rushed home from his course in the office to drive us there.

We checked out okay; the dr. said we were exhausted from the illness we’d been battling the week before, which sounded a lot like rotavirus to him. He said that it was going around at that point, much earlier than normal this year. He told me to take Claire home and go to bed with her, and rest us both up for a few days, which seemed to do the trick. By Friday, we were all pretty much back to normal.

Saturday was Halloween. Daniel woke up with that wet icky cough that no parent likes to hear. We skipped gymnastics for the second week in a row and the kids and I hung out at home while Jon went to his meeting and did some grocery shopping. We took the kids trick or treating at the mall that afternoon (they had stopped the coughing) which none of them really enjoyed. It was busy and crowded and after 30 minutes, the boys asked to go home.

After a quick dinner of Arby’s takeout, we trick or treated around our house for a very short time, and then spent the evening at home together, handing out candy.

Sunday morning Josh started coughing as well, and I headed off to church on my own to help in the nursery, as I’ve committed myself to do. I found out there that we were not the only family hit by the mystery puking bug, and it actually calmed me to know that. I’m actually betting that we all got it from the same place - church!

Today is the first day this week that my boys went to school. Their coughs have not been bad, barely lasting through the morning hours, and they haven’t had any fevers through this whole ordeal. However, I want to be a responsible parent, and keep them from spreading what germs they have. Something minor to our family could be a catastrophe to another!

I am very lucky that in times like this, I am able to stay home and not feel the need to send my kids to school or daycare despite their illness due to feeling a responsibility to my employer. I think that my kids appreciate it too and I hope they look back on their sick days as stress-free days of comfort and relaxation.

As for the icky sickies, I really hope that they are on their way out of our family, and that this is our bout with it for the season. I always have the never-ending illness of 2007-8 close to the front of my memory and I often pray that we never have to do that again. I’m especially remembering it this year, as it seems we’re doing it again right now.

What else are we doing? Well, we are following the advice of a wise woman we know. Her mother’s doctor’s advice, actually, all the way back from the dark ages of polio…

Wash your hands and pray.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 6:11 pm and is filed under News, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.