Super Bug

It seems as though everyone is getting the stomach bug this year. For weeks now, my Facebook feed has been filled with people complaining about the bug.

Because it methodically hit everyone in their families.

Or because they were begging for someone to put them out of their misery.

So I’ve been bracing myself for a while, waiting to see if this thing was going to hit even closer to home. One of my nephews had it a week or two ago, and unfortunately, it lingered for quite a while for him. And my mom also got it from being around him. But we hadn’t seen them in that timeframe, so we were in the clear.

But then, as I took the girls into daycare on Friday morning, Mary told me that on Thursday night, TWO of the other kids who go to her house both came down with the stomach bug. Uh oh. I crossed my fingers that we’d get lucky.

And then we somehow made it through the weekend unscathed. On Monday morning, I dropped my girls off at Mary’s to find NO OTHER KIDS there. Apparently every other child—and many of their parents—had been afflicted with the bug between Friday and Sunday. This made me nervous, but given that no one had been at Mary’s since Friday, and no one else was there on Monday, I thought we may have, somehow, dodged that bullet.

Come the middle of the night between Monday and Tuesday, however… I learned I was very wrong. At 1:30 a.m., we heard Nora calling for us and crying over the monitor, and we were pretty sure we knew what was happening. Sure enough, when Michael went in to get her, she had thrown up all over herself and in her bed.

We got her into the bathroom, cleaned her up, got her changed into fresh pajamas, and brought her into our bed with us, armed with the iPad, a puke bucket, and a box of tissues. Nora was too uncomfortable to sleep, so she didn’t. I dosed in and out of consciousness, but was mostly awake the remainder of the night because every 30-40 minutes, Nora was throwing up again. She threw up eight times between 1:30-7 a.m., the poor thing. She kept complaining about being thirsty, so we gave her a few sips of water, but within 30 minutes, she’d throw it right back up again.

And as soon as she was FINALLY exhausted enough to pass out for a while? Vivienne was awake for the day. Of course.

After I fed Vivienne, Michael took her and went to Wegmans to pick up some Pedialyte. Nora and I got about an hour of sleep before she woke up and was tossing and turning again.

She spent the rest of the morning watching movies on the couch. A little before noon, we decided to get her ready for a nap. Michael went upstairs to put fresh sheets on her bed, and I snuggled her on the couch. Within minutes, this was the scene:

As you can imagine, this NEVER happens. Definitely a clear sign she was sick!

When she got up from the nap (only about two hours later, I had expected longer!), she also had a 103-degree fever. FUN TIMES! If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

(This was AFTER the nap. So not normal!)

I dosed her with some ibuprofen because she was clearly miserable. An hour or so later, she perked up and was acting almost completely normal. “Mommy, I feel better!” she was saying. “I’m not sick anymore!”

That lasted like an hour, and then she was collapsed on the floor in the family room, covered with her blanket, telling us she was going to sleep. We asked her if she wanted us to hold her, if she wanted to get up on the couch. All she would say is, “No, thank you. I’m fine.” Within 10 minutes, she was legitimately passed out on the floor. It was about 5:30. The poor kid! I took her temperature while she slept and it was back up to 103.6.

At this point, I was a little worried, so I called the pediatrician. I couldn’t give her more ibuprofen since it had only been about three hours from the last dose. The doctor said to just let.her.sleep, and to give her some acetaminophen and alternate the two if we had to, in order to keep her comfortable. She also told me to load her up with as many fluids as possible before bedtime.

Nora ended up stirring awake shortly after I got off the phone. She wanted nothing to do with medicine or fluids—which was tough, because she had been taking them easily earlier in the day. All she said was, “Mommy, I want to go to bed.” It was 6:30! :(

I carried her upstairs, had her go to the bathroom, and gave her medicine and forced a few sips of Pedialyte. She went to sleep, and other than crying out for us a few times during the night for a drink, she slept through. 13+ hours.

Today, she’s still out of sorts. She still has a fever, though not as high as it was yesterday. She’s still spent the majority of the day on the couch. And she once again ASKED me to go up for a nap… at 10:40 a.m.! So crazy.

(Morning, Day 2)

She napped for three hours, and although she still has a fever, she seems to be in better spirits than this morning. We’ll see what tonight brings. But in any case, this is a NASTY bug! I hope she’s better soon!

In the meantime, we’ve been doing everything we can to ensure no one else in our family gets it. So far, so good, but we’re certainly not in the clear. Vivienne has been her happy self:

Let’s hope it stays that way! And given that we’ve already been out of work for a few days (and I don’t know that Nora will even be ready to go back to daycare tomorrow, either), it will suck if it hits the whole family.

So stay healthy, my friends! Wash hands, wash hands, wash hands!