Where to start?

Oh my, I don't even know where to start. I suppose our life got topsy turvy two weeks ago on Tuesday night. I had been out of town all day for business, a fly-out and fly back sort of thing. We got to bed around 10 that night and then woke up at midnight to "cough cough, gag, splat"...the baby was sick. He wouldn't stop throwing up and was dry heaving every 10 to 15 minutes, so we got him downtown to the hospital. We knew we needed zofran, an anti-nauseau med, since we've been through this stomach bug routine with him before. We normally go to the children's emergency clinic that's about 10 minutes from the house, but they close at midnight, so we had to go all the way downtown. After checking in and going through triage, we were told that we had a 2 hour wait. I cannot tell you how mad, infuriated, frustrated, and devastated I felt over being told that we were going have to wait 2 hours in a waiting room while our 11 month old infant dry heaved bile into our hands. All he needed was half a pill of zofran and he'd be fine...we could wait it out. Yes, the waiting room was full in front of us, but there were no other infants and no one was vomiting or laying on the floor dying. Isn't that was triage is for? Sort them by importance, not just the order you come in?? I tried going through different channels by trying to contact our pediatrician on my cell phone while Hubby held baby in the waiting room. Evidently while I was out walking a hole in the concrete sidewalk outside and cursing my phone and everyone that was associated with the hospital, he'd decided he had enough and had a little talk with the triage nurses (2 men and one woman) again. Let's just say it was a quiet conversation that I'm glad the security guards couldn't hear. Nonetheless, we were taken back to a room within 10 minutes. We did eventually get the baby's medicine, and we got headed home around 6 that morning.

I spent Wednesday at home and Hubster worked part of the day. We were tapped out from the night before, and were still keeping a cautious eye on the baby. That afternoon, he hurled again, and I got him in to see the pediatrician. She confirmed that there is a virus going around and that we could expect to see him throwing up for up to 7 days. She also cautioned that it was very contagious. Thursday morning, Hubby came down with the bug, and I came home to take care of them. Thursday night, I was throwing up, too. The bug ran through Hubby in about 24 hours. I stopped throwing up and then started having diahrea that lasted 3 days...I couldn't stop it. He almost took me to the ER because my body wouldn't retain any fluid. All the while, our baby was throwing up 2 to 3 times per day, and we kept him on the anti-nauseau med as little as possible but enough to keep fluids in him.

All totalled, the baby threw up for 8 days. He never got diahrea because the virus slowed his system down so much it caused constipation. We finally got that resolved in the past few days and have learned just how badly sick baby poo smells. Two days ago he gave us the first grin and giggle we'd seen in a while. He's lost about a pound, which for him, he didn't have to lose. He's never carried any baby fat. We're working on getting the weight back on him. Today has actually felt normal, and I'm thankful for that. I'm still mad at the hospital system. I hate feeling helpless. On top of all of that, I've had a sore throat for going on four days. It comes and goes. I've been giving my immune system a pep talk....I think it ignores me.

Two of the girls from my work brought us gatorade and homemade soup and shared their prescription of phenegran. (gasp! a shared prescription! whatever! it's the only thing that kept me even remotely interested in looking at a glass of water for four days) We were so grateful to them for doing that. We pretty much wouldn't have had anything if it wasn't for them.