Grand Slam

After Sarah missed trick-or-treating, I kept her home from school on Friday. She lazed around all day and continued being sick. I kept Charlotte as far away from Sarah as I could and tried to keep everything as clean as possible.

Andy came home from work and we ate dinner. I didn't finish my dinner, which isn't like me when I'm pregnant. Andy commented that I must not be feeling well to leave half of my dinner. Ten minutes later, Sarah's virus took hold of me and I was heaving like first trimester morning sickness.

Less than an hour later, Andy followed suit. We sat dumbfounded and scratching our heads, wondering how we'd managed to find ourselves in this position.

We took turns in the bathroom for the rest of the evening. At one point, Andy went upstairs and I thought he might be giving up and trying to sleep. A few minutes later, he returned and said, "Guess what!? We hit a Grand Slam!" He was holding a VERY sick-looking Charlotte and dropped her off with me while he retreated to her room to change her bed sheets. She was nude, covered in smelly yuck, and shivering. I spent the next while cleaning her up and holding her hair back from falling into the garbage can each time she was bent over it.

Eventually, all three of us went upstairs and tried to sleep. Um, that didn't work out so well. Andy spent from about 1am-6am in the spare room or on the floors of each girls' bedrooms, taking turns with the garbage cans. In the morning, Sarah proclaimed, "Daddy slept on my floor and he puked in my garbage can. It woke me up but I went back to sleep." I'd hear, "Daddy!!!! Daddy!!!" every 20-30 minutes, then I'd hear Andy get up, comfort the screamer, head to the bathroom himself, and return to the sick kiddo.

I had called my OB and she had instructed that if I was still vomiting through the night, that in the morning I'd need to be treated for dehydration by IV fluids. So I did my very best to lie still between 2am-5am to allow my body to absorb some of the minute amounts of water I was sipping. At 5am, my body had had enough and revolted against my efforts. By that point, I started to think I was feeling sick because I hadn't had anything solid in my belly for so long. My wonderful husband brought me a cracker and a tiny bit of tea. I had that small amount, lay my head down, and slept for a couple of hours without vomiting.

We all lazed around, slept, vomited, and moaned ALL DAY on Saturday and by evening, I was starting to feel just a hair better. Charlotte was still vomiting, Sarah was definitely not herself, and Andy was questionable.

Sunday found me feeling much improved, Andy on the mend, Charlotte still having some issues every 12 hours or so, but Sarah was not much improved. She was STILL vomiting (remember that her last solid food was a waffle and milk on Thursday morning) and complaining that she couldn't walk because her legs "felt old" (shaky). She said that when she stood up to do something, her eyes would "get dark". I think she was starting to black out.

I took her to Children's ER around 10:30am and after waiting for an hour in admissions, we got a room, waited 40 more minutes to see the doctor, then met the IV nurses. Lovely. After some serious screaming, a failed attempt to stick her vein in her right hand, the nurses finally found and landed a vein in Sarah's left inner elbow. They administered two bags of fluid, some "sugar shots" and other stuff to help increase her sodium and sugar levels. We visited the fish tank, played "I Spy" in the lobby, watched shows, read books, Sarah napped for a few minutes (until the aide came in to take her vitals--grrrrrrr!!!!!!). Finally, at 7:15pm or so, we returned home. We weren't home more than 10 minutes before Charlotte, wo had reportedly been feeling better all day, vomited all over the dinner table. UGH!!!

Monday morning, Sarah woke up feeling much better but Char was still under the weather. I thought it might be a bit of my bronchitis so we went to the peditrician who sent us for a chest x-ray. No bronchitis or pneumonia showed up but she's still coughing and hacking today. They're goign to call tomorrow to check in on us so I'll update them tomorrow.

If you're still reading this, here's the wrap up: We ALL had a stomach virus and spent the entire weekend puking or at the hospital. This was certainly a weekend for the recordbooks--and not in a good way. :(