Mothering The Stomach Flu

I'm sure from this title you can tell what kind of weekend we've had. Friday evening, my precious baby Chloe came down with a fever. "Okay," I thought, "here we go with another cold or virus of some sort, no big deal." So in went the Tylenol and out went my worries. By 10:00pm, I knew we were in for a rough night. Up to 104 degrees and throwing up all over the hallway wall, my level of calm quickly faded. For the first time since by choice in grade school, I was up ALL night. No, not one hour of sleep, not thirty minutes of sleep, zero, zip, zulch! and my poor baby and Travis as well. Thankfully Emma was having an overnighter at Grammy and Papa's house that night. The misery was written all over Chloe's face, "save me Mama!" it said, and oh if I could have I would have. What I wouldn't give to be able to take the pain and suffering away from my babies when they are ill. We emerge from the night, only to find Grammy with Emma at the front door at 5:00am. Emma had just thrown up and was looking a bit green. So our Saturday begins. After a morning trip the ER (do worrisome illnesses ever come about during the week?!), and an unsuccessful catherization on Chloe (the poor nurse couldn't get the thing in...several grueling times at Chloes expense) at which point we opted out of a retry by a different nurse and headed for home. $100.00 later, no diagnosis, and still a very sick little baby. Emma's face was in the bucket most of the day, movies rolling, saltines and Canada Dry close at hand. She never got a fever, thank goodness though, so we were pretty certain it was a stomach bug. Chloe's fever never did come down much, 101 at the lowest yesterday with intermittent bouts of "reject!" She wanted nothing to do with her bed all day, only mommy would do. Yesterday brought about thoughts of what hell must certainly be like. No shower, 98 degree heat, no air conditioning and a wonderful combination of sleep deprivation peppered with regular contact with vomit and diarreha. Did I mention that Emma's afternoon nap ended with the later all over her sheets? Add to this the helpless feeling you have when your babies are suffering and you can't take it away and I think you've got the perfect recipe for what eternal suffering must be like, only I'm sure a billion times worse, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. Okay, okay, enough grossing you out, but have I painted my picture? Now to end a day as truely priceless as this, we could have nothing less than a trip to Urgent Care. After a day of battling Chloe's high fever, which got to 105 at the highest, we decided we needed to make sure it wasn't an infection of some sort that needed treatment. She was flat out moaning at this point, she acted as if she was trying to escape her body, but no which way she moved could she. This was one of those moments as a mother that truly breaks your heart. That look of desperation, knowing that they have full faith that you could take this away, but for some unknown reason you are not. I just wanted to cry! Then came the antibiotic injection, a fourth of which sprayed all over the place as the needle broke away from the syringe. And the grand finale of the night was a urine collection bag stuck to her to sit on for the ride home. Thankfully, either the injection or the contiuned Infant Motrin and Tylenol brought her fever down to a comfortable range for the night. We actually got to sleep a little last night, praise the Lord! Emma seems to be completely on the mend, but the verdict is still out for Chloe. After her fever jumped back up this morning to 103.4, we got a call from the Urgent Care office saying that her urine came back normal, no bladder infection, but that the doctor wanted to do a complete blood count, I'm guessing to check for a possible more serious infection. So at lunch time today, we went in to have Chloe's blood drawn, oh what fun! (See, I can be so sarcastic, I really need to work on that!). Baby's have their blood drawn the same as you and I do, with a tight rubberband around their upper arm and a needle in the crook of their elbow. I had to hold Chloe so tight while two nurses, thankfully quickly, got the job done. Chloe was spent! After all this trauma and screaming and crying, she now has a horse voice. She fell right to sleep in the car on the way home and is still taking a nap as we speak. Thanks for letting me unpack our weekend on you. You may not have wanted all the gory details, but it sure felt good to get them on "paper". Please pray that Chloe's test results will come back soon so we can get to the bottom of this. She hasn't had a fever at all since this morning, so I'm guessing she's on the mend. Ah yes, the trenches of motherhood, that's where I spent my weekend, how bout you? The week is looking bright, surely we can only go up from here, right?