Normally the fact that my family is larger than average doesn't even cross my mind. In the back of my mind I realize I do more laundry than other families, we eat more groceries, we take up more space, etc. but all of that becomes normal so I don't really think about it. But I never feel more like a large family with four young children until the stomach bug comes to visit. Then....well, then it hits me what having four children means. What it means it that it will be a full month (at least) until everyone is feeling better, the laundry is caught up, and we can resume our normal lives.
Baby Ava started us off with some kind of tummy bug over three weeks ago. I blogged about how pathetic she was
here. She had trouble shaking this bug and it hung around for a week or so. Then John David came down with it. I wasn't surprised. While all four of my children have inherited a weak stomach from me, John David is far and away the worst. If there is a stomach bug going around he will catch it without fail. He was sick one weekend and bounced back quickly. Yeah! Just when I thought the rest of us would escape the crud it knocked us out flat. Ella and Harrison came down with it this past weekend. If you are counting that is the third weekend in a row someone in our household has been sick. Ella was still feeling a little puny on Monday so she stayed home from school but by Monday afternoon was back to 100%. You might think we would be in the clear at that point. All four had been sick so we should be on the mend. You would be oh so very wrong. Monday afternoon was when everything started to go downhill fast.
I picked up John David from school Monday and he seemed fine. He was animatedly telling me all about his day in Kindergarten when out of nowhere he got violently ill all over my car. He then proceeded to be ill every 5 to 10 minutes for the rest of the night. We keep a stash of anti-nauseau medication on hand at all times and gave some to John David but it did nothing for him. By 11:00pm that night he was so weak he couldn't even lift his head. We've been through this before with him and know how easy it is for children to become dehydrated when they are that ill. We kept having him drink small sips of ginger ale every time he got sick hoping to at least keep him hydrated. When he was three and we were on vacation in South Carolina he came down with a vicious tummy bug that landed him in the hospital with dehydration and a minor tear in the lining of his esophagus. Having been through that once before we were watching for any blood when he vomited, and bingo, around 2:30am we had blood. Very scary. By that time the vomiting had slowed to about once every 45 minutes to an hour. We gave him another dose of zofran and crossed our fingers that it would work. If not, we were prepared to head to the ER at Arkansas Children's Hospital. Thankfully, this time the zofran worked, the vomiting slowed way down, and he was able to get some sleep. We talked to our pediatrician on Tuesday and followed doctors orders. Unfortunately there is not much they can do for a minor tear in the esophagus. We kept him on the zofran to keep the vomiting from returning, kept him on clear liquids, and didn't let him eat most of the day. He was not happy about the no eating thing. He spent part of the day watching Food Network and by the time late afternoon rolled around he was complaining of being starving. I don't blame him. After watching Cupcake Wars and all sorts of other yummy food shows I would have been starving too.
By Tuesday afternoon I was again feeling hopeful that things were looking up. John David was better, the twins were back to normal, Ava was fine, and husband and I had escaped. That was when Ava woke up in the middle of her nap sick
again. It seemed like this tummy bug was determined to take us all down and by Tuesday night I had fallen victim. Now husband was the only one left standing. And he did a fabulous job coming to the rescue. He ran carpool, handled meals, did laundry, and waited on me in my puny condition. Thank goodness for him or I don't know how we would have survived. I hesitate to write that so far he hasn't come down with this bug. I know the second I do he will come in the front door, home early from work because he is sick. I pray that doesn't happen. Not for our sake, although I don't want anymore sickness in the house, but for his sake. Speaking from experience this tummy bug was painful and I hate to see him suffer too.
Right now, as I sit here and type this blog, I have most of the windows in the house open, even though it is 59 degrees outside. The house is a bit chilly, but I don't care. I am airing things out. I want the germs out and fresh, clean, non-infected air in so hopefully we can all get better and not start another round of this. Maybe this weekend we can actually do something outside of these four walls. Maybe we can all go to church together for the first time in a month. Maybe we can spend our weekend having fun as a family instead of being sick. But hey, we did get sick as a
family.
