Some thoughts after my least relaxing vacation to date – part II
I recently posted this entry describing the least relaxing vacation/week-and-a-half I have experienced – ever, perhaps. My original bulleted list of events looked like this:
Here is an addendum:
Tuesday, April 1st – I was home from work with Gabriel, and he was looking much better. He was able to tolerate rice cereal, bananas, and larger amounts of PediaLyte.
Wednesday April 2nd – I returned to work, but Evan woke up sick that morning with the flu. He was at home from work that day with – let’s say an array of symptoms very convincing for flu (I won’t go into details, since he should have at least some modicum of privacy!). When I got home from work in the early evening, Gabriel had just thrown up again, and his diet regressed back to PediaLyte sips.
Thursday, April 3rd – I woke up at 3AM with nausea, night sweats, and chills. By 8AM the severe muscle aches had set in. Evan was feeling better, but not great – but he went to work while I stayed home, recovering.
Friday, April 4th – I wasn’t well, but needed to go to work because my sick days are limited after being out on maternity leave last year. I spent the day mostly doing work at my desk, or if I had to interact with a patient, wearing a mask and gloves with lots of hand-washing. The nausea and muscle aches were better, but I was wiped out and had only had sips of Gatorade for 36 hours. I was also on call that night. However, it wasn’t the hospital that kept me up during the night, but Gabriel’s constant coughing over the baby monitor. I must have checked on him five or six times during the night, and rocked him back to sleep once. The nausea is gone, but all three of us are still quite congested with nasty coughs.
Now, today is finally Saturday – a weekend day, where no one expects anything from any of us. I had hoped, a week ago, to have a play date between Gabriel and one of his baby friends, but this is the wrong weekend for that. I really hope we are all back to normal by Monday. What a crazy two weeks it has been.
I apologize – I realize this is not interesting for anyone except for me, but having lived through it, I felt it was worth documenting. I really wonder what diseases I will end up catching from Gabriel – he’s not in daycare, but he will be around other children, and will start pre-school eventually. I have a friend whose son started daycare two months ago, and he’s already given her diarrhea twice and now a bad case of hand-foot-and-mouth disease (Coxsackie virus). Not too fun!