Our Little Patient

This week. Oh my goodness.

When Landon started school on Monday, half his class had runny noses. On Thursday I found out most of Infants II – the class right next door, separated only by a half door – presented vomiting and diarrhea after lunch. Friday the lead teacher in Landon’s room was out sick with strep throat.

L.J. didn’t stand a chance.

His cold symptoms started Thursday. Friday they got worse. He was clingy, fussy, crabby and not eating much – very uncharacteristic of our calm little bottomless pit. Friday night about 12:30 a.m. he threw up his entire bottle. Mike came in and told me he had gotten sick. L.J. was covered in it. Mike was really covered in it. And apparently so was the couch.

We had a friend staying with us, so of course this would happen on a night L.J.’s room was serving as guest quarters. We cleaned him up and changed his outfit, with L.J. loudly letting us know exactly what he thought of his impromptu midnight striptease. He refused to go back down, but eventually I got him to sleep in the bouncer next to the couch. Which meant mommy slept on the couch. With a pulled neck muscle. Yessir, that was some stellar sleep Friday night…not.

But wait, you ask, wasn’t the couch covered in baby throwup? No, because by “couch” Mike actually meant the upholstered wing chair in the family room. Thankfully most of the damage was contained to L.J’s and Mike’s pajamas, so we got the chair pretty well cleaned up.

Saturday morning he seemed a bit better. He still wasn’t eating, but he perked up a bit. Unfortunately that didn’t last. By late afternoon he was once again refusing to be put down. My friend had stopped by for dinner, and L.J. pitched a fit when she picked him up. That was very out of character. He started crying every time we moved him. About 6:30 he threw up his second bottle and was then inconsolable. A short while later he threw up all over me – basically clear, mucous-y slime. By this point I was rather freaked out and ready to drive him to Children’s, throwup clothes and all.

Instead, we called the on-call nurse at his pediatrician’s office. She said that since he wasn’t running a fever we should try a few at-home things – bathroom steam treatment, more saline/bulb, cooler house – and re-evaluate in the morning.

Those things helped a little, but we had a rough night. He refused to be put down and cried pitifully every time we touched him, let alone moved him. We managed to get him to sleep in the bouncy seat again, which entailed 30 min of bouncing the bouncy until he fell asleep. If the bouncing stopped, crying commenced. We did this ridiculous procedure twice during the night before giving up. L.J. and daddy snuggled on the couch the rest of the night.

This morning we called the on-call nurse again. He’d eaten almost nothing in 24 hours and was clearly miserable. She directed us to the nearest pediatric urgent care office. Judging by the crowd, it must have been the only one for miles. And it was a veritable petri dish of contagious kiddie diseases. Fortunately, the doctor said he doesn’t appear to have anything worse than a cold. She said we can give him a little coconut water to help keep fluids in him, but otherwise it needs to run its course.

So here we are. Our miserable little guy has been camped out on mommy or daddy all day and is getting lots of (loud) rest. He seemed to like the coconut water, so that’s good. We’re getting him to eat a little bit more by diluting his bottles.

Mike’s not busy at work, so he’s going to stay home and care for L.J. tomorrow. So thankful for that! Hopefully by Tuesday he’ll be well on his way back to normal.