Nasty Gastro Bug

Sorry I haven't updated in a while but it has been pretty crazy here. Last Wednesday when Josh woke up I knew right away that Josh wasn't feeling quite right. He wouldn't eat anything for breakfast and it just seemed like his tummy was upset. As the day progressed there was no improvement and he vomited once after his nap. I was scheduled to work that evening and since Josh didn't have any more episodes of vomiting and wasn't running a fever I figured I was okay to head in to work. I was wrong.

Shortly after I arrived I received a panicked phone call from Robb that went something like this...."Josh is vomiting, he's having diarrhea and he feels hot. I don't know what to do! PLEASE come home!!!" Robb has a really hard time coping when Josh is sick. I explained to him that it seems like Josh has gastro and that there's not much we can do except clean him up after each episode, give him Tylenol for fever and encourage him to drink fluids to keep him hydrated. This was of little comfort to Robb and again begged for me to come home.

It may sound silly but I was in emotional turmoil after that phone call. Of course I wanted to be home with Josh to comfort him and care for him and I also felt frustrated that Robb was unable or unwilling to deal with this on his own. Anytime Josh is sick Robb freaks out and doesn't know how to handle it and I guess I was needing or wanting him to step up a little bit. I suppose this wasn't a fair position to put him in since I'm the nurse and he's not. But now that we have this first gastro experience behind us hopefully he'll be able to cope a bit better next time.

The other aspect of my emotional turmoil came from the responsibility I felt toward my work. Anyone who's a nurse knows how tough it can be when you're short-staffed on the unit and I knew that if I left they likely wouldn't have been able to replace me on such short notice. However, it quickly became evident that even though my body was physically at work my mind wasn't. All I could think of was Josh and wondering what Robb was doing and how he was coping. Luckily one of the nurses was scheduled to leave at 4pm but offered to stay and finish my shift. I was extremely grateful and quickly headed home.

When I walked in the door all I could smell was diarrhea. I entered the kitchen and there was Robb covered in vomit, Josh in his arms in nothing but a diaper, cleaning up the kitchen sink and counter of Josh's last vomiting episode. Robb was actually doing very well with him...he was handling the situation perfectly and I told him that. I reinforced that he was doing everything that he could and he was taking good care of Josh. I think Robb appreciated hearing this but it didn't change how he felt about the situation.

Anyway, the high fever and vomiting only lasted about two days but the diarrhea stuck around for five. And that was with like 7-10 episodes of diarrhea per day. With all that vomiting and diarrhea coupled with no appetite I swear I could see Josh losing weight right before my eyes. Thankfully he would still drink plenty of juice and water (although he would have nothing to do with the pedialyte) so he never did show signs of dehydration.

Today Josh is doing much better. His bowel movements are back to a normal consistency and his appetite more or less back to normal as well. Hopefully we don't have to go through this again for quite a while.

Thanks for checking in on us. I'll leave you with a picture of Josh enjoying a good book in between episodes of diarrhea.