gastroenteritis

{Warning: This post is gross. Not for the faint of heart, or those on their lunch break.}

"Why did he drink so much???"

That was my first thought when I heard, from my sleepy stupor since I had just begun my night's rest, Justin throwing up a couple nights ago. As my mind became more aware of reality, I realized Justin hadn't been drinking at all.

He was sick.

The poor guy spent the night traveling between the toilet and the bed.

The next day we would laugh over how when Eisley woke up screaming and thrashing I jumped out of bed and picked her up, then I turned to Justin and half -screamed, "What do I do!?"
Again, in my sleepy stupor and frazzled from Justin's illness, I didn't realize that this wasn't just the typical night of a sometimes fussy Eisley. On those nights, Justin takes care of her. And it's usually just a matter of him hopping out of bed and handing her her pacifier and she settles right back down. He has a way with Eisley at 2am that I've never known...

Instead, I found out the next morning, that wasn't a typical night, but apparently she'd had another night terror or something.

Is this the type of mother I am? My child starts screaming in the night and I scream to my sick husband, "What do I do?!"

It did make us laugh the next morning.
It's just he has a way with getting her back to sleep...

Anyway, the better part of our weekend was "ruined" by poor Justin's affliction with gastroenteritis.

We've had it before. It's awful. It's the sickness that makes you consider asking for death just so you can feel better. Sunday night, Justin threw up approximately 8 times. As for the other "action" his GI tract had going on, I'll leave that to your imagination.

By Monday night, he was starting to feel better, and we were hoping and praying that he had food poisoning and that Eisley and I would be safe from it.

Tuesday, the second day of this family's weekend, we were all doing pretty well. The worst was over for Justin, and Eisley and I were in good shape.

After putting Eis to bed, Justin and I enjoyed the movie Up, which we highly recommend, and a bowl of popcorn. We were getting ready to head up to bed after the movie when we heard a cough from upstairs.

"Oh no!" I said. I just knew, from the sound of it. That was a vomit cough.

We ran upstairs and looked down on Eisley.

"See? She's fine - " Justin started to say but I interrupted.

"What's that smell?" But I already knew. Everyone knows that smell. "Oh no.... it's going to be a long night..."

And then she vomited again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And by about 4am when she finally settled into a solid sleep in her crib, Eisley had thrown up about 11 or 12 times.

The one blessing was that between her vomiting bouts, Eisley was in an okay mood. Just tired. If she had been miserable from stomach pains it would have been so much harder on all of us. The only thing worse than having the stomach flu for 24 hours and blowing it from both ends every 1/2 hour is watching your child go through that.

After the first several incidents, the poor thing would throw up from Justin's arms, who was holding her face down over the trash can. Once the bout was done she would just go limp and fall asleep from exhaustion, only to repeat the same thing 30 minutes later...

But if there's one thing we know from gastroenteritis, it's that it always passes. Despite how much she threw up, Eisley seems to have handled the illness quite well.

So where does this leave me? That's what we'd like to know.

So far, no trouble. It might just be my paranoia now, but I can't help but feel there's something going on in my tummy. All is well so far, though. I'm actually a little bit hungry... I think I'll go make breakfast for myself and pray I keep it down.

Here's to wishing you all a great 2010 without the stomach flu.