Norovirus

I feel like I am back from the dead.  I think I wrote about how the nanny was sick last week.  It turns out it was the norovirus.  How do I know?  Because we got it.  Ugh.  Emily probably caught it a lot sooner than us since she threw up on Saturday and had diarrhea, but she was as happy as ever and it didn’t seem to bug her, so we just kept her hydrated and waited for it to pass.  It turns out since she had the rotavirus vaccine, that just made it a lot less severe for her.  And thank god for that, because if she had it as bad as Bryan and I did, I don’t know what would have happened.  I can see how children die from it.

 

Anyways, we felt fine Sunday night.  Bryan was complaining of feeling a little run down and went to bed early, which was unusual, but I didn’t think anything of it.  I bounced Emily to sleep and wasn’t feeling tired, so I got a glass of wine (regrettttt) and turned on the TV to look for a movie to watch.  About 20 minutes later my stomach started to hurt, but I didn’t think much of it.  It really starts hurting and I notice it looks like I’m six month pregnant and my pajama pants are super tight.  I stand up and realize, oh god, I have to get to the bathroom now.

 

I’ll spare you the details, but when I got in there I must have woke Bryan up and I hear him run to the other bathroom and start the same thing.  Damn you, thin adjoining walls.  Right when it would finally ease up (as in a two-second break) I would hear him and start all over.  After a few hours of that non-stop, it was obvious we were going to need some help.  Emily was already waking up because the bathroom Bryan was in was right across from her room…and it was LOUD.  Needless to say, she didn’t sleep well, but there wasn’t anything we could do about that.  At close to 2am I knew I was going to have to call someone for help because we had been going for hours at that point and it didn’t seem to be letting up at all.  The nanny had already asked for that day off so she could heal more from it, so I couldn’t call her.  I had to call my mom, who lives a good 3 hours away.

 

The answer for when your kids finally stop waking you up in the middle of the night? 
Never.  I am 30 and I apparently still do it.  Ha.

 

I have the best mom in the world, of course, and she left immediately.  The problem is the first ferry was at almost 5am, so it was going to be a few more hours and we really needed to get to the hospital.  My arms and legs were starting to tingle and go numb which was a little scary and at that point we were both sitting on the toilet (DIFFERENT toilets, lol) with a pot in our laps and going out both ends.  Emily usually wakes up between 7:30 and 8:00am, but I figured she’d sleep in a little since she was up a lot, but I was so worried that my mom wouldn’t get there in time.  We ended up calling Bryan’s aunt who lives a half hour away to please come sit in our house until my mom gets here so we could go to the hospital.

 

There’s several reasons we didn’t want to involve her in the first place and I have extreme guilt that we had to resort to it.  First off, she takes care of Bryan’s great-grandpa (her dad) on an almost daily basis.  He’s 93 years old and in failing health.  If he got this, it would kill him.  The second she walked in the house I asked her to just go downstairs in the guest bedroom because we hadn’t been in there for a good week and so I knew it hadn’t been contaminated.  Of course she has the extreme caretaker gene and just wanted to help.  She came upstairs and I kept backing away from her telling her I was going to get Bryan, but she was getting up close to me and wanted to help with Bryan.  I just wanted to yell at her to go downstairs, but she was doing us a HUGE favor and I was so thankful, but she wasn’t being careful.  I hope like hell she doesn’t get it.  The second reason I didn’t want to involve her is that Emily would have flipped her shit if she came to get her in the morning.  She would have been hysterical and that would have made me hysterical and probably try and take care of a baby when I was physically unable to do so.  I just crossed my fingers that my mom would get there before she woke up.

 

Then there’s the guilt of giving it to my mom.  Now, I know she’s going to get it.  I don’t think there’s any way around that one.  We wiped everything with antibacterial and I kept my distance, but she was taking care of Emily all day and picked up puke after Emily threw up yesterday.  So…yeah.  Did I mention she’s leaving for Hawa

ii on Sunday!? =(
She did get to the house before Emily woke up at least, thank goodness.

 

Bryan and I went to the hospital and I’m really glad we did.  Both of our blood pressures were through the roof and they had to put me on oxygen at some point because I wasn’t getting enough to my limbs.  My legs and arms were numb and my hand was seizing up.  I was really crying hard because my hand was completely rigid and hard and stuck that way and I couldn’t do anything about it.  Scary.  They gave us anti-nausea  meds and we were obviously severely dehydrated, so they gave us fluids too.  Got a prescription for the meds and left a few hours later.  Bryan stayed huddled up on the bathroom floor the rest of the day, but I was able to sleep for about two hours and then around 3pm felt good enough to go see my baby.  I messaged the nanny earlier asking her if there was any way she felt good enough to come in at noon so my mom could sleep for a little while, and thank god she said yes.  My mom hadn’t slept pretty much all night and had to take care of Emily all morning, so when the nanny got there at noon my mom got to sleep a little.

 

I got better as quick as I got sick it seems.  I didn’t eat all day Monday because I was afraid to upset my stomach, but yesterday I was able to eat crackers and soup and never had a problem.  Bryan always takes a lot longer to get better so he’s been slower going, but he seemed to be a lot better today.  Emily doesn’t have much interest in food still, but she is happy.  She was pretty lethargic yesterday and we literally sat on the couch for hours just watching movies snuggled up.  I didn’t even have to coax her to hold still, she just snuggled with me.  That was nice.  No one else was allowed to touch her though.  If my mom or Bryan even came towards her she would throw her arms around me and squeeze as tight as she could.  My mom left yesterday and I’m crossing my fingers she doesn’t get sick, but I gave her some of the anti-nausea meds just in case.

 

Another huge thing has happened as a result of all of this.  I was actually able to bounce Emily to sleep Monday night, all though I regretted it half way through and wished I hadn’t, but I really didn’t want my mom to have to do it.  Yesterday at her nap she was so tired and I was really weak from not having eaten and my head was killing me, so after we read books in bed for a while I made the decision to just turn off the light and have her sleep next to me.  I couldn’t bounce her and my mom was gone and Bryan was still way out of it, so she was going to have to sleep somehow, and that was the nicest way I could think.  I didn’t want to just dump her in her crib and have her work it out.  Of course she started crying immediately, but it wasn’t a sad cry or a lonely cry or a hurt cry..it was an “I’m really f-ing ticked off that you’re doing this to me”cry.  I held on to her and told her I was there and did all the shooshing, but of course she didn’t want me to touch her and so I just laid there next to her.  It took about 20 minutes, but she actually fell asleep.  I was actually shocked it worked.  She napped for almost two hours, too!

 

I decided that this is the time to break her from the ball.  She is approaching two years old and demanding to be bounced just isn’t going to work anymore.  It is going to be a really touch transition, but it has to be done and this is the perfect catalyst.  So last night for bed we did the same thing.  I did our usual night time routine, we went to bed to read books, then I turned off the light and we did it all over again.  It took longer than the nap, but she eventually fell asleep and knew we were right there.  After she fell asleep I picked her up and put her in her crib and that was that.  So, here’s hoping that it gets easier quickly.  I think Bryan is still going to bounce her for naps when I’m not there and we had a “discussion” about that, but he doesn’t have the patience for the other way.  He says it doesn’t “fit in his schedule”, essentially.  He has to leave the house at 1:30 and he wants to be able to take a shower and clean before he leaves, so she needs to be asleep by a certain time to give him enough time to do that.  I think you can guess my reaction.  Anyways, I’m not giving up.  If he wants to bounce her, fine.  I don’t have a choice in the matter.  But when I am there, that’s the way we are going to sleep.  We can’t drag the damn ball with us everywhere.  It would be nice to be able to go on trips and not have to bring it with us and just have her go to sleep like a normal child.  This is the only way we are ever going to get to that point.

 

Anyways, that’s been my last few days.  Not fun. I am at work today, but I’m definitely going home early.  Emily slept in and I didn’t get to see her before I left and I’m betting she is going to be grumpy for Bryan and the nanny.

 

<p class="s2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; “>You know, looking back now, it’s a good thing I’m not pregnant, right!?  I’m not sure a little baby would have lived through that!  I’m sort of bummed what that means for this cycle though.  I’m on Day 5 now (yes, I had the pleasure of also being on my period through that whole ordeal) and I wonder since my body has been put through the ringer if anything will happen this month either. =(  Since I ovulate later I’ve still got a good two more weeks until I have to worry about it, but something tells me my chances aren’t good.  We’ll see.

 

All right, I think I’m going to do some Facetime with Emily. =)

~Sheralyn