In my entire life, I've never been to the ER... so to bring my child was certainly a first. But this weekend, in general, was a series of firsts!
Wednesday evening, while playing in the back yard, Therese threw up (blew her groceries if you're my father-in-law). To keep it less icky lets just say that after baths and clean-ups, this continued throughout the next 3 hours and totaled 9 times before we decided to go to the ER. It sounds crazy now, but at the time, she was happy in between the "episodes" for a while, and I didn't want to be that crazy mom who brings her child in for a little spit-up (and maybe because an ET trip costs $100 on our beautiful health insurance plan), so I waited. I couldn't get in touch with ANYONE, I even called my pediatrician at home (sorry Dr. Thompson). When the throwing up totaled nine times, we got John Paul to my parents for the night, then brought Therese to the ER. Long story short... we were home for 11:30 with a diagnosis of strep throat, my shirt full of you know what, $100 swiped onto the credit card, and sweet Therese with a shot in her leg and asleep for the night. That was a first. With babies her age/size, the cooties from the strep in her throat drip into her little tummy and it can't handle it- so if your child has cold symptoms and begins throwing up, you can almost bet it's strep- FYI.
Thursday, John Paul and I went to the children's clinic to have our throats swabbed because we were told that we both probably had it as well. Another $100 later, 2 negative strep tests and a suggestion to keep John Paul away from Therese for the rest of the day, we brought John Paul back to Granny and Grandpa's house. This was hard for me. They brought him home when it was time to go to sleep.
Friday at 1:30am... I wake up with blowtorch-like heart burn (which isn't totally abnormal for me - GERD and Pregnancy combo is deadly). By 3 am - you guessed it- I was also purging, shall we say. Nursing Therese in between, because she was still not feeling well and could only have pedialyte and breast milk from her tummy episode. I never really went back to sleep for the flames in my esophagus, and I was THAT girl at CVS at 5:45am - bed head, pj pants, the closest pair of shoes which never seem to make you look any sort of good- buying tums, maalox, pedialyte, etc. I also had so much cramping that I thought I was miscarrying- some miscarriages, I'm told, are accompanied with nausea and vomiting- and I now know that I wasn't, but I was obviously a little sleep deprived and worried.
Here's the fun part: David had long been scheduled to be flown (on someone else's dime) to Pensacola to speak at a conference for jr high kids... after much prayer we both decided that he still needed to go. So even though John Paul had been returned to us the previous night, by 11am he was back at my parents. David left at 10:30 for the airport, my nurse-mother was at work because her partner was in Atlantic City that day... my parents were scheduled to go to Galveston for the weekend, All aunts were unavailable, in-laws live in BR, sister moved to CO last February, you name it- no help available besides my dad for John Paul (praise GOD). And so weak, dehydrated mommy "took care" of weak, dehydrated Therese until my precious mom arrived and spent the night/day with us (they postponed their trip for us). John Paul stayed with my dad again. Saturday afternoon my precious mother-in-love came to help and I was feeling better. John Paul came home too... oh the tantrums. David returned home this afternoon and we had him for about 30 minutes before he left for work (Youth minister, it's Sunday... sigh).
I will save the effects of the "extended absence of mommy and Daddy" on John Paul's behavior for another post. Did I mention that the extra hour tacked onto our clock meant that the kids were both up before 6?
GOOD NIGHT!
