Where I Pray for Diarrhea

Last Thursday was going to be a busy day.  It started with  a trip to the dentist for Josh where he spent an hour getting four fillings and sealant on his permanent molars.  Since the entire right side of his face was numb, I took him home and let him watch TV for awhile to be sure he didn't bite his cheek or lip while it was all numb.  Last time he had a numb lip he kept rubbing it with his finger and ended up with a sore on his lip.  By 11 am I took him to school.

A little later, after getting Hannah on the bus for afternoon kindergarten, Maria and her girls arrived to stay for two nights.  They were on Spring Break.  After the girls loved on and fought over Bethany (as they always do, they just love her), we headed to the school to watch Josh jump rope.  The whole school was participating in Jump Rope for Heart and he had been practicing like crazy.  He was so cute and excited to see us there.  He showed us all his mad jump roping skills.  After I ran through a torrential downpour to get the car, Maria, the girls and I came back home to wait for Hannah to get home from school.  Molly, Emma and I met her at the bus stop while standing in yet another torrential down pour.  It was a nasty day, and was only going to get nastier.

At five we headed back to the school to pick up Josh who has been participating in an after school program where they get to play team oriented games.  This day they played hockey and he loved it.  After we got home, we headed to the pizza place where Shad met us.  Josh started to look kind of puny and only wanted to drink water.  I was hoping he was just tired from such a busy day, but about half way through dinner, as he made a mad dash to the bathroom, I was forced to accept that he was actually sick.  Shad was nice enough to take him home so the girls and I could go to family skate night at the local roller rink.  I got a call from Shad later informing me that Josh threw up in his truck on the way home.  Bummer.

It was so fun to get on roller skates for the first time in years.  It took me back to sixth grade.  Maria was dying for a Slurpee.  All three girls put out their best efforts on the roller skates.  None of them had ever been.  I even pushed Bethany around the rink a few times in her stroller.  That was a lot of fun.  After an hour or so, everyone was ready for a drink.  Maria took Hannah, Bethany and Molly with her to the food area and Emma and I went out for two more laps.  By the time we rolled off the rink Hannah had turned in her skates and had her shoes on, and she looked pale.  I asked her if she was OK and she just stared at me.  Not a good sign.  I sat down and untied one skate when she got that look in her eye.  I jumped up and pushed her toward the bathroom.  She made it to the doorway.  Bless her heart, she tried to catch it in her hands, which only made it worse, but she threw up all her pizza.

When she stopped, I guided her to the sink, most likely dragging my untied skate laces through the mess, but not really caring at this point.  I cleaned her up the best I could considering there were no paper towels in the bathroom, only a stupid hand dryer.  I rolled back and forth from Hannah at the sink to the stall to get more one ply toilet paper to help her wash up.  All the time hearing people come to the entrance of the bathroom, say something like "oh gross!"  When we came out of the bathroom, I removed my skates, handed them in and apologized in my mind to the guy I handed them to because I knew he was going to be sick next.  When I saw the lady heading to the bathroom with the mop, I told her I was so sorry and she rolled her eyes at me.  Apparently she has never been in this situation with any of her kids.

Thankfully we made it home without incident.  Shad informed me that Josh had thrown up several more times.  As I was getting Josh and Hannah's beds lined with towels and placing a bowl next to them, I noticed that Shad looked pale.  He said he thought it was just because he had to clean up so much vomit and that he would be OK.  But he went into our bedroom and flopped down on the bed.  I apologized to Maria for everything then made myself a bed on the hall floor outside of Josh and Hannah's rooms.  About and hour into going from room to room emptying barf bowls, I could hear Shad downstairs.  He had it too.


I laid on my floor bed for a couple of hours going from kid to kid emptying puke bowls and rubbing backs and playing Angry Birds on my phone in between.  By about midnight both kids were trying to go to sleep and my guts were starting to grumble.  I knew what was coming.  I actually prayed that God would let me skip the throwing up and go straight to the diarrhea.  I really don't like to throw up  and the kids were both to the second phase of the sickness, so I thought maybe I had a chance.  God obliged.  To the bathroom I ran, several times.  Everytime I tried to lay down and sleep, my belly would hurt so bad and the nausea was unbearable.  By about 2:30 Josh and Hannah were finally asleep, so I fought through the pain and nausea and finally fell asleep myself.  And hour later I woke up just in time for my pizza dinner to rear it's ugly head.


Shad came upstairs to check on me and found me just sitting on my floor bed.  We both just sat there for a few minutes, staring, then discussing how much we hate throwing up.  Then we got up, headed downstairs and went to bed.  I woke up and hour later and enjoyed more pizza.  By 7 am, I woke and my body hurt.  The body aches had settled in.  I chanced it and took some Motrin with a sip of water.  Shad couldn't sleep anymore, so he got up.  An hour later, I got up and thanked God that the Motrin stayed down.

Poor Maria left a day early.  I don't blame her.  I can't believe she didn't run out of the house the night before.  Shad actually went to work on Friday and the kids and I just laid around the house all day long.  By 12:30 Hannah went up to her room to take a nap and didn't get up until 5:30.  Josh and I tag teamed watching and entertaining Bethany who never got sick, thankfully.  And now, 4 days later, we are all much better, but still suffering some residual effects of the sickness.  Shad still has a headache and I still get small waves of nausea.  Josh was a little puny yesterday and Hannah threw up her breakfast on Saturday.  We got to start Spring Break a day early by missing school on Friday, but I think it really started today when the kids and I slept in until 9 this morning and no one has puked for 48 hours.