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Category Archives: Sickness

Our first ever visit to urgent care

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Owen came home from school complaining of a sore throat. He said the dreaded words: it feels like swallowing glass.

Unfortunately… there were no appointments available at the hospital as everything was shutting down for the storm. So…I researched which urgent care we could go to and off we went!

Thankfully it was just minutes from our house and we got in quickly. We had to wait for a rapid strep test plus they took a Covid test. Strep was negative so it was off to Target for some throat drops. We did a rapid Covid and it was negative…so I just think he had a cold with nasal drainage causing the sore throat.

Owen’s home again.

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Thankfully I was feeling a lot better because I got a call from the nurse’s office saying Owen had a bad stomachache.

UGHHHHH.

He has no other symptoms (thankfully no vomit or diarrhea) so I’m honestly curious if he’s sick or not. Kids are hard—they haven’t had enough experience to know what they can suck it up and work through or if they’re really sick. I did try to suss out if there was anything going on at school that he might be trying to avoid and he assumed me there wasn’t. So… He’s home. And I’m back in bed resting.

I made Tom go to the doctor.

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So Tom had been having some lingering effects from his time with the stomach bug, so I finally convinced him go to the damn doctor. Well…

Long VA medical care story short, he ended up in the ER getting fluids because he was really dehydrated. They ran a bunch of tests and bloodwork but he just came home with anti-diarrheal and anti-cramping meds. Turns out his stomach was just still not happy and was creating problems.

I’m just gonna say this could have started to be resolved a week ago…but men.

Aaaand now Katie has it.

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She woke me up at 4am to say she puked in the bathroom sink. But at least she made it to the sink instead of in her bed! Small favors! (Well, except I had to clean vomit out of the sink. And it smelled eerily similar to Owen’s vile mess.)

She crashed on the couch because she says her bed is uncomfortable. I know she just wants to be by me so she can talk to someone when she wants. This morning it was 100 questions: How did you clean the sink? What time is dad going to be home? Why can’t I eat regular food? How many times did Owen throw up? What if I can’t eat or drink all day? What happens? Who was that text from? Can I drink some water? What’s Maggie doing?

OMGGGGGGG PLEASE GO TO SLEEP AND REST!! Compared to Owen who slept silently in his room all day.

Maggie wanted to be with her. I know, awwwwww.

But wow oh wow was she moany and whimpery all day. It was very disconcerting. I’m guessing she’s just not familiar with any kind of pain so it’s all overwhelming. I mean, she sounds about like how I felt when in the throws of my gall bladder issue but I know that’s not her issue.

Aaaand in a complete 180 from how the middle school handled things…apparently Katie needs a Covid test TODAY according to health department guidelines. What? Why would it be different than MS? The nurse had no idea, it shouldn’t be. Katie wouldn’t even be allowed back in the building to even do a test on Tuesday (no school Monday) because they don’t know if she’s negative or positive. And it has to be a lab-based negative test to come back. GRRR. I know this is protocol but shit like this makes me want to have lied and tell them Katie is taking a mental health day. She has a stomach bug like we all did. It’s not Covid. So then I had to figure out where to get her tested—and not wanting to take her today because she’s really sick.

And that was even a process (of course) because I tried to register for testing at the local community college and it said my number was already in use so I tried for like 10 minutes to reset my password with no luck. I called and they were really nice and helpful and got me set up. Turns out my number was already tied to both kids for their school shield testing.

And then I had to call the assistant superintendent’s office to try and get clarification on why buildings handle things differently and leave feedback on the whole process. But of course had to leave a message.

So Katie is whimpering away, tossing and turning, her back hurts (but she refuses to lay flat and stays crunched up in a ball), she’s afraid to drink because she doesn’t want to throw up, nothing sounds good to her. So I tell Tom it’s his turn to come sit with her (he had a half day today so he was home resting because he’s still not at 100%) and he comes downstairs and she immediately asks him if she can watch a movie and get a drink of water and I’m thinking what the hell girl like two minutes ago and for the past two hours you’ve been a mess the whole time but dad walks in and now you’re normal? Of course.

And then this happened. We actually had to move her so she didn’t fall off.

So it’s been a day.

Household sickness update!

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I had 11 somewhat okay hours of sleep…but I didn’t feel great in the morning—no vomiting or anything else, just all over achy and a big headache). I spent most of the day on the couch resting.

Tom now feels crappy, too (he said had been up since 3) so he went in and got his computer this morning (before I got up) and worked from home. He had gastrointestinal issues, nausea, chills…all the good stuff.

Owen had to stay home today regardless but he feels mostly okay.

Katie is perfectly fine.

Oh noooo! A sick kid!

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Nothing like being woken at 3:30am by a sick kid (“Mom…Mom…I threw up in my bed”) and having to change the sheets twice in 20 minutes. (Which was especially difficult because a teen boy does not take care of his laundry or keep sheet sets together. So he might or might not have one sheet and a dog blanket on his bed.) And try not to get sick myself because that smell was the most vile thing I’ve smelled in my life. (It was half a day before the smell finally left my nose.)

The first load of laundry went in at 4am with more loads to come (sheets, comforter, mattress pad—oh yeah, we learned that his mattress pad wasn’t really waterproof so his mattress got a quick spot cleaning).

I’ve forgotten how awful this is — no one has been sick like this in years.

Thankfully he slept most of the day. Even took a shower and went back to bed.

I had been worried about having to get him tested for Covid — even though we knew it was a stomach bug, everything is a symptom of Covid so it’s mandatory — but the nurse said she knew the stomach bug was going around, so as long as he followed the normal return-to-school-after-sickness protocol (minimum 24 hours with no vomit or diarrhea) then he could come in to the nurse’s office before school and get tested. Excellent!

He was doing pretty well by that night (he was able to eat a little bit) but still tired. And I started to feel a little off so we all went to bed early (plus I was exhausted since I had been up since 3:30am and only had a short nap).

Hospital #2: Lake Forest, Day 2

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Technically day 2 since I started at hospital #1 on the 10th and it was now the 11th.

4:15a — Arriving in the bowels of the hospital.

Being taken to my room, this was the elevator—Living Lippy, right?! Obviously the pain meds were working at this point.

Everything went well…until Tom showed up and they wouldn’t let him stay because it wasn’t visiting hours! WHAAAAAT?! No one told us that so we were really annoyed. Thankfully they at least let him come up to see me for a few minutes and drop off a bag for me (with some clothes, my glasses, lip stuff, laptop, and makeup remover wipe—it was driving me crazy that I hadn’t been able to do my nightly skincare). Oh, and surprise—no kids allowed as visitors!

4:36a — Let me tell you—a Fooops! wipe never felt so good!

I finally got about three hours of solid sleep from 6-9. The pain started up again so I’m on morphine again. Have talked to a few docs and the surgeon and they’re tentatively planning the surgery for tomorrow morning. Today is antibiotics, an MRI to see just where everything is, and pain mediation. And trying to grab whatever sleep I can.

2:40p — on morphine and feeling fine

6:40p — I’ve been sleeping most of the day. Just had the 45-minute MRI (actually an MCRP) and fell asleep in there for a bit…and now have to wait for the doc to figure out which surgery I need—endoscopic plus lapriscopic or just lapriscopic.

Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) is an MRI exam that produces detailed images of the liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, pancreas and pancreatic duct. It identifies gallstones and can show gallbladder or bile duct inflammation or blockage.

https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/gallstones
Boring broth, boring jello… But the Apple juice and Sprite were amazing!

I knew I couldn’t have Tom bring ALLLL my skincare, so I had to narrow it way down. My Overnight Lip Mask was a definite yes. I had to dig through and empty my whole backpack but I found it! My lips are now happy!!

The rest of my bare minimum skincare: Climate Control, evening moisturizer (for day and night since I’m not going outside), Shea Butter Body Cream and the lip mask

Soooo, they said it might be 24-48 hours (!) of observation?! So much for “emergency surgery” eh? But apparently my gall bladder is so pissy they need to calm it down first (lots o’ antibiotics). It depends what the doc says. So I’m waiting for her to come discuss my ultrasound results.

#pissygallbladder

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PLOT TWIST, continued!

Out of nowhere about 9:15 I started having extreme pain in my chest and just felt really crappy—enough so that I texted Tom to come home because I was NOT GOOD. It was time to start getting the girls ready for bed and I couldn’t even think straight so needed him to come handle it.

It wasn’t reflux or gas or anything I’d felt before—and I knew women’s heart attacks had different symptoms and that’s all I could think of. I googled and it didn’t seem like a heart attack but whatever was happening was not normal. I thought if I could just go to bed and hopefully fall asleep…maybe I could sleep through it. But the pain wasn’t going away and it was actually a little scary. And then just like that I felt better! Weird. I sat up in bed and just as I was getting excited that it was over…BAM, it came screaming back. At this point I called Tom upstairs and actually told him I was scared and it was at this point (about 10:30) that I said I needed to go to the ER.

Someone obviously had to stay with the kids—and Tom wasn’t able to drive safely (remember, he’d been at a poker night with the boys)—so he called Anna and she got here—from a dead sleep—within about 10 minutes. She drove me to the ER as I writhed in pain and tried to breathe through it. We spent the next five hours at the ER (10:30p–3:30a), most of which I was in about a level 7/10 pain.

11:15pm

I was on morphine for the pain (thank God for morphine) and it was weird how I could feel the pain ramping up (I started breathing differently) and knew to ask for more. Anna was googling trying to figure out what it could be. She was staying in touch with Tom. She was updating the sleepover moms on my phone. When I wasn’t incoherent with pain we visited like normal.

After some tests and bloodwork—my heart was fine, kidneys were fine, my liver was a bit elevated but not worrisome, and overall bloodwork was all fine. But the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a really pissed off gallbladder. Stones and something else I forget. So then it was my first Covid test ever (which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be) and a leisurely ambulance ride to another hospital to be observed and prepped for emergency gallbladder surgery! Anna went back to our house to stay with the kids while Tom drove to the hospital to meet me there.

3:45am — mask on and ready for transfer
3:57am — off we go to the ambulance
In the ambulance. No sirens but I think the lights were on.

Not exactly how I planned to spend Katie’s birthday…

But I cannot thank Anna enough. Seriously. She was my angel tonight—from the initial car ride to admission to keeping Tom in the loop to grabbing nurses to texting the sleepover moms…to relieving Tom at home (and watching the kids) so he could come see me. Whatever I needed, she was there.

Katie’s first sick call

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I got a call from Katie’s teacher about an hour after I dropped her off. She said Katie wasn’t acting like herself and was very clingy…so they took her temperature and it was a bit above normal. She told me she didn’t feel good so she rested a bit and watched a movie. She even wanted to cuddle with me for a bit.

But then this happened.

And miraculously she started feeling better. By the time Tom got home (from North Carolina) you’d never know she’d felt sick…but definitely still wanted daddy cuddle time.

 

Fevers suck. 

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What freaks me out the most is her fever. This is her first time being sick sick (maybe she had a touch of fever when she was a baby but I don’t recall). Her fever has increased slightly (99 this morning…to 100…to 101.5 now) so of course I was worried and paranoid. She just looks so small and pathetic. 🙁 

I have the baby monitor set up in her room and at least she was quiet…until just now when I started hearing little whimpers. I hate to hear her cry, but she honestly looks dead on the monitor (it’s about 18″ away from her face) so I like any sign she’s alive. 

  

I don’t anticipate sleeping much tonight. The only positive is that we preemptively barf- protected her room.  

It’s Katie’s turn to be sick.

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It’s been three days since Owen was sick (he also missed a day of school!) so I was hoping she missed it but apparently she didn’t. At least my laziness paid off—I still had the towels on the couch and the floor from when Owen was sick so it saved me a bunch of cleanup.

 

She still has a little bit of attitude as you can see. 🙂

   

She pretty much lived on the beanbag and thankfully kept drinking water (which wasn’t too bad to clean up when it eventually came back up).

  

Not a surprise we wanted.

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Owen had said his belly hurt after dinner but we didn’t think much of it since he says that now and again and it’s never anything.

So I forgot all about it and went to bed excited (though late), thinking there’s nothing like falling asleep at midnight planning on your first, nice, deep, uninterrupted sleep in nine days (post-vacation)…only to be awoken at 12:30 by a kid crying in your doorway saying they’ve puked and need help cleaning up.

Holy hell.

It was everywhere. And it was some of the worst I’ve smelled. I knew right away there was no way I could handle it all by myself, so I had him wait there while I quickly went to wake up Tom. Between the two of us, it still took a good 30 minutes to clean up.

We had put a huge bowl next to his bed (“just in case”) but there was no point as he had obviously just puked and then rolled over the edge of the bed and puked again. There was puke covering about a 4′ square section of carpet, he was covered (hair, PJs, face), all of his bedding (including bed skirt!) had to be removed…and it had even started soaking through the mattress protector. We had to clean the carpet as best we could without getting out the Rug Doctor (which would surely have woken Katie up) and we had to get out (and blow up) the air mattress (since I wasn’t going to put him back in bed without a barf-proof mattress pad cover). Then we covered the floor with towels and started a load of laundry. And hoped that would be our only wakeup call.

The only thing I could think was “At least we were at home and not at the condo or in a hotel or in the car.”

Another sick day!

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My day started with Owen coming in while I was taking a shower and asking where the wipes were.

Me: Why do you need wipes?
Owen: Because I threw up in my bed and need to clean it up.
Me: Are you okay? Do you still feel sick?
Owen: I’m okay.
Me: Okay, daddy’s downstairs. Go tell him and he’ll take care of it. I’ll be out in a minute.

So I double-timed my already short morning shower and when I got out about three minutes later, Tom was throwing all of Owen’s bedding in the wash. Apparently Owen had been coughing and he threw up (of course the morning after I changed his sheets but that’s neither here nor there)…but he said he felt okay so we were going to send him to school.

Technically I knew we shouldn’t because vomiting is a no-go, but if it was just because of coughing…??? The part of me that says he’s not sick and it’s just a reaction to a gut-wrenching cough is at odds with the part of me that says vomiting is vomiting. I need to get away from the mindset that if he feels absolutely fine, has no temperature, has no other signs of anything, and has a history of vomiting with coughing…he still stays home if he vomits.

I didn’t really have much time to think about it, though, as 20 minutes later he was coughing and threw up again—plus he said his belly doesn’t feel good. Once again, his temp wasn’t even normal (78.1). Tom and I reiterated that staying home does not mean fun and games and he’s going to have to rest and take a nap. But he still says he doesn’t feel good so he’s staying home.

Of course, I had a ton of errands planned for this morning (that I’ve been putting off until today) and now I can’t go. Tom has an early day, though, so he said he’d do some for me.

—

He ended up throwing up breakfast (about an hour after the fact—thankfully while Tom was still home!) so we cut out all food. We made him sip water and that seemed okay so we gave him a juice box—which came up about an hour later. By dinner he was feeling better so we tried a graham cracker and a strawberry which stayed down, so before bed he got more graham crackers and strawberries (which also stayed down).

I really wish I knew what was happening. 🙁

I guess he really was sick.

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Owen hadn’t felt the best all weekend but it was never anything serious (i.e. no fever)—he just seemed more tired than normal but nothing that out of the ordinary.

So come this morning, he was even MORE tired than normal, but I still didn’t think much about it because it was Monday and he’s been tired every morning. I didn’t think he wanted to miss school because he loves school, but I thought maybe he was milking it a little more.

He ate his breakfast but didn’t eat as much as he normally would. Then instead of playing afterwards, he just curled up on the couch. Hmmm. Okay. So then the alarm rang to get ready for the bus stop and he got up and walked to the foyer but wasn’t putting his shoes on. He said he didn’t feel good. Well, he’d been saying that all morning so I wasn’t really sure what to think.

So as I was debating what to do (make him go to school, keep him home) he vomited all over. Four times. Poor Owen. And poor me because he was ROOTED to his spot on the floor and couldn’t move five steps into the bathroom to hit the toilet. At least it was 1) on the wood floor and 2) not AT the bus stop or ON the bus.

So he was obviously staying home…but of course then he felt better and wanted to go to school. And when I told him he was staying home he suddenly wanted to color and play and watch TV. Sorry, kid, right now you’re going back to bed since you’ve told me all morning how tired you are and want more sleep. I told him after he rests awhile he can come down to watch TV (I’m not evil, LOL, I remember the fun of watching TV while I was home sick).

So he was kind of upset and Katie was a HOT MESS because she was already ready to go—with coat and boots on—and she did NOT want to get undressed. So I sent Owen up to change into jammies and rest and he had a fit because he did not want to rest…but he finally went upstairs. I set him up with a barf bucket and tucked him in. And he was back downstairs less than 10 minutes later. So I explained that he’d been complaining how tired he was all morning and how he was practically sleeping on the couch so he needed to rest to get healthy…and we had a talk about how staying home from school sick doesn’t mean we can have fun and play games and watch TV all day. Staying home sick meant you had to rest. So back up he went, where he stayed for about 30 minutes. Okay, fine. Then I let him watch TV.

He seemed to be feeling better around lunch and ate a piece of toast with peanut butter. Then I made him lay down for a nap when Katie took hers and he rested but I’m not sure he ever slept (though his eyes were closed when I went up to check on him—and I think if he had heard me, he would have popped up). So he got to crash on the couch and watch a movie. This is how I found him. Such a boy. 🙂

2014-11-17 16.03.10

And after Katie got up I happened to get a call from a friend asking if I could go rescue her son from their front porch because she hadn’t made it home in time and he would be wondering why he couldn’t get in the house. 🙂 So I dashed through the back yard to go get him and when he came in the house, it was GAME ON. It was like Owen had never been sick. Running and jumping and playing and screeching like nobody’s business. 🙂

Interesting sidenote. When I called the attendance line, you didn’t get to talk to anyone and you just left a message—and they asked what the doctor said or what the symptoms were. Then about 4:15 I got a call from the school confirming that Owen was home sick and what his symptoms were. Apparently they keep track of these things? In case…they need to know who Patient Zero was?

There’s nothing like ending an 11-hour road trip with a little vomit in a car seat.

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We were about five minutes from home when we heard an unexpected and unidentifiable noise from the backseat, then Katie crying, then Owen telling us that Katie puked. Wait, what?

I unbuckled and turned around and HOLY CRAP did she ever barf. Ugh. So I was trying to clean her up as best as I could while Tom was trying to get us home (we had been planning on stopping to pick up dinner but then cancelled that so had to get back into traffic). We pulled in, stripped her down in the front yard, and I immediately took her upstairs for a bath. She didn’t seem any worse for the wear so we had no idea what caused it.

Then it was time to try cleaning the car seat. What a nightmare. I think I’d rather buy a new one than try to clean vomit out of one. Seriously. They do not come apart easily—and once you do get it apart, you still have to clean vomit out of all the plastic crevices…with a toothbrush and Q-tips. (I guess I’m lucky this is the first time it’s been this bad…?)

Not quite how I envisioned our return home…

Owen impressed his teacher

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So I get a call from the school today saying Owen got sick in class and they’re just letting me know. Apparently they will keep the kid there unless a) I want to come get him or b) he gets sick again. Well, I didn’t get any more details (to hopefully help me decide) and Katie was down for her nap…so I said I’d leave him.

Then I texted Tom to let him know and he said he’d go get him (he was planning on leaving early anyway). So when they got home I found out that he simply said he didn’t feel good, then walked over and barfed in the waste basket—which really impressed the teacher! She asked Tom if we trained him to do that and he said not really…but we try to tell him to get to the toilet, a garbage, or at least a non-carpeted area!

We made him take a nap (since he missed nap time at school) and he seemed fine afterwards. He was ravenous at (and after) dinner and was his typical crazy self all night.

I was trying to get him to drink some water and after awhile he said “Mama, my belly doesn’t like water anymore. I think my belly needs chocolate milk to feel better.” 🙂 (Tom had stopped at the store and bought chocolate milk as a treat.) I told him his belly liked water just fine and he could have chocolate milk in the morning. 🙂

Phew! It’s not strep!

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Owen has still had his low-grade fever and strep has been going around, so I took him to the doctor after school…just to make sure. So he got his first throat culture—and did exactly what I do (gagged and coughed) and he started to cry so I assured him he did awesome and that his reaction was normal! Thankfully it came back negative. The doc said it was likely just something viral that would last 3-5 days and be done.

Wasting time and playing with Katie:

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