It's been a rough four days for us. Marisa woke up on Wednesday at 2 am and was miserably sick. She threw up four times in a row. As I was cleaning her up, the virus passed on to me and would rear it's ugly head 36 hours later. We spent the next two days cleaning carpets, changing bedding frequently, doing tons of laundry, coaxing our daughter to eat or drink something and praying that Marisa would not get dehydrated. Meanwhile, we did our best to keep our son, Kieran, from getting sick.
Thursday afternoon, just as I was getting extremely ill, Marisa had a seizure. It didn't last long, but long enough to terrify Mike and me. Thankfully, he was home to take care of her as I was too weak to be of any use beyond calling 911. The EMTs arrived swiftly and explained that our daughter's temperature probably spiked suddenly and her body went into a seizure to cool down. They strongly recommended that we take her to the hospital for further care.
So Mike took Marisa to the hospital, and a neighbor took care of Kieran till my sister arrived. Meanwhile, I tried not to puke on the carpet. Mike spent five hours at the ER. They ran blood tests and took a urine sample. Marisa was ok, just mildly dehydrated. The blood draw was so stressful for her that they didn't want to poke her with more needles and tried hydrating her orally instead. Of course, we'd been doing the same at home without much success. She hates Pedialite! (Later, I found that water with a dash of salt was much easier on the tummy and chicken broth was also well received.)
Mike arrived home from the hospital around 10 pm and promptly fell ill to the insidious virus. My sister Kendra, a pediatric nurse, was a hero to all of us. She took care of our entire family while we were sick, and kept Kieran entertained. Kendra stayed up with Marisa through out the night and got her to drink and eat a little. On Friday, all three of us sickies were doing better, but still very fatigued. Mike and I lived on 7up and crackers for most of the day until dinner. My sister made a wonderful homemade chicken soup for us. We all were able to eat it and keep it down. God bless Kendra for her kindness to us! We sent her home Friday night to get some well earned rest.
Today, we're all feeling better. Mike has recovered the quickest, and I'm feeling mostly normal but I know I'm not 100% yet because I saw chocolate in the cupboard today and didn't want it. Soda crackers, scrambled eggs, chicken soup, and apple sauce are keeping us going for now. Marisa is doing much better and has been asking for food and drink. She's still got some awful diarrhea bouts that aren't fun to clean up. However, her energy is good so we're feeling hopeful that our sick days are almost over. Kieran is doing great!
We'd appreciate your prayers for all of us to recover completely. We've been in such a fog trying to get everyone healthy that we've not been able to contact friends and family to let them know what's been happening. So, a blog post will have to do for now.
