Virtute.org

I’ll be honest, this is a bit of a dull thing to blog about, but it’s been such a source of stress and anxiety this week, that I’m writing about it anyway.  One thing I’ve learned about being a parent is that it’s easy to fret yourself into turning a normal virus into a potentially life threatening illness.  There were multiple times this week that I imagined the worst, from fearing she had something as severe as meningitis, to fretting that some unknown illness was going to permanently diminish her brain function.

It started out on Wednesday.  She woke up in the middle of the night and vomited all over the bed and floor.  She spent all of Wednesday in bed.  I moved her into Isaac’s room where I had stripped the sheets and created a little bed for her and set her up with plenty of fluids and a movie.  She stayed in bed all day.  She continued to vomit throughout the day and did not get out of bed once or eat.  She also had a fever and red cheeks.  Her breathing seemed quick and I could feel her little heart beating rapidly through the blankets.  A few times, she vomited when I moved her.  Sometime between 10 and 11 she vomited again and the color was yellow which didn’t match any of the liquids we had tried to give her.  We began to really fret that something serious was wrong and our Internet research only heightened our fears.  I wanted to see how she was in the morning, but Zach was afraid that we’d regret not taking her in if it did turn out to be something serious so I took her into the ER around 11:30 that night. 

As I held her in my arms, I couldn’t help but worry both that I was doing the wrong thing by bringing her to the ER and about if something serious really was wrong with her.  She stared up at me, silently smiling and I thought about how devastated I’d be without this precious little girl in my life. 

They took a urine sample to rule out any kidney infection and gave her IV fluids with Zophram added to ease the nausea.  In the end the doctor said that it was just a virus and recommended Motrin/Tylenol, plenty of fluids, and a bland diet.  I left the hospital between 3 and 4 in the morning, feeling mad at myself for taking her in and depriving both of us of sleep (and also mad to have spent $100 on a hospital copay that I would much rather have spent elsewhere).  As soon as I walked in the door, I heard Ila crying.  I handed Nicole over to Zach and rescued Ila from her bed, but I was still mad at myself for taking her in to the ER for a virus.  I was pacing the floor and crying out of weariness and frustration when Zach came back downstairs to talk to me.  He said he was still glad I took her in.  That he’d much rather take her in on something minor than delay in taking her in and have it be something serious.

I spent the rest of the night nursing Ila and getting any rest that I could as I fed her.  By morning I was so tired that my eyes just didn’t want to open–I can’t remember ever having as hard a time waking up in the morning as I did on Thursday.  Thursday she was very tired.  She didn’t throw up, but she looked miserable and didn’t have the energy to play.  When she was awake she cried and wanted to be held.  She didn’t eat much either. 

As the week progressed she started having short periods of play in the morning where she seemed almost better, but every afternoon and evening she acted miserable and just wanted to be held.  She vomited again on Saturday night and had extremely watery, foul smelling diapers throughout the week.  I occasionally got her to eat a few bites and drink some fluids, but she hardly ate or drank anything.  My paranoia started to come back as the days progressed.  She would lay in bed looking at me with her mouth open, drooling.  I would give her food to eat and she’d just sit and look at it until I said “Nicole take a bite,” after which she would sometimes put a bite in her mouth.  Then she’d sit there with her tongue hanging out of her mouth with food on it.  I was miserably worried that somehow her brain function had diminished and she’d spend the rest of her life drooling and being spoon fed.

Finally, a full week after her vomiting began, she started eating and playing again.  Yesterday was the first day that she ate something at every meal and did not spend several hours crying or demanding to be held.