Tummy Troubles

The sights, sounds, and smells of our house have been, um, less than pleasant the past few days. Friday afternoon Joseph and Samuel both started vomiting, and I have never been more appreciative of the carpet steam cleaner I received for Mother's Day a couple years ago. After a few "episodes," Sammy's tummy eventually settled down and he collapsed into a deep sleep. Poor little Joseph, however, continued retching long after his tummy was empty. The bug made its way to the other end of his GI tract, and at one point he was sitting on the potty, leaning over to vomit into a bucket I held for him. When Zachary awoke from his nap, I realized I was dealing with far more than I could handle, and I called Steve and pleaded for him not to work late.

By 7 p.m. Joseph was still having dry heaves every 5-10 minutes, and was looking dehydrated and very weak. I called his doctor, who prescribed a suppository to help settle his cramping stomach. By the time I returned from the pharmacy, though, I was quite certain the kids had passed their germs on to me. Ugh... I shouldn't have eaten that Chinese takeout, I regretted. I nursed Zachy to sleep, took a "puke bucket" back to my bed, and left Steve to camp out with the little sickies in the living room. Fortunately our vomiting subsided around 1 am, but then the body aches and the chills set in.

We spent the rest of the weekend in recuperation. Luckily Alex and David didn't contract the nasty virus (update: David got sick through the night), and Steve only had a few hours of nausea and aches. I was really dreading Zachary catching the bug (since he really doesn't know how to aim for a bucket,) until I realized that the poor little guy has been suffering from this for several days. For him, it started earlier in the week when he vomited his breakfast. Initially I thought the incident might have been from gagging, because that was the only time he threw up. But his appetite has been very poor and his diapers very messy, so it looks like little Zach must have been the one to get the rest of us sick. Poor baby is also dealing with a head cold--a little cough and lots of boogers. Fortunately, we still get good use out of our hospital-grade snot sucker,



though little Zach is already learning to blow his nose! He has been looking somewhat blue the past few days, but his sats are holding steady in the mid- to upper 80's.

I started feeling a little sorry for myself when all this chaos exploded and I was running around between the boys and the bathroom, rinsing buckets, and scrubbing carpets. Then I realized there are hundreds, thousands of sick children this very moment who have no "sick bed," no bathrooms, no mommies, no homes. These children are our neighbors just a stone's throw from our own shores. These are the children of Port-au-Prince. In just a matter of minutes, the simple homes they once knew were literally shaken out from under them. Many lost their parents, their siblings, their friends. I tried to explain to my boys that no matter how awful they may sometimes feel, there are children, not only in Haiti, but all over the world, who are suffering in horrible conditions. I'm not sure they really understood, and to be honest I'm not sure I understand, either. We often live in a bubble, but it's important to reach out from time to time and put things into perspective.

Speaking of bubbles, that's about all that lingers of our weekend tummy troubles. Let's just say that... you, uh, wouldn't want to light a match around here for a while yet! We'll return to school and work tomorrow none the worse for wear (except David), and we'll keep our Haitian brothers and sisters close to our heart in prayer.