We hit a bit of a rough patch recently. Immediately following a nice long weekend spent hosting and entertaining out of town family (when the shot above was taken) a few unwelcomed visitors set up camp.
It all started as a nasty stomach flu. Isla got it first, then Maryn then me and finally Mike. For Mike and I it was pretty much a 24 hour bug, but the experience for the girls has been exponentially longer. In fact, they are both still dealing with bad diarrhea a week after the onset.
Folks, for those of you that haven't had this type of experience, let me just say that this is when having 2 in diapers is r e a l l y rough! Before this, yeah, a pain. But during? No joke, this experience has been one of the most exhausting of my life. Imagine 20 plus diapers a day for EACH kid! Imagine going through 8-10 pairs of pants a day for EACH kid. They scream and fight when you change their diaper because of the burning irritation. Said conflict inevitably leads to contamination of hands, feet, legs, floor, clothes, etc. (I had to change my own clothes a few times) and then after you finish the entire ordeal 20 minutes later you hear the tell tell sound and have to start at the beginning. Add to all this the constant offering of fluids and food (as it was literally draining right through them), the parental worry and exhaustion and you've got a pretty clear picture of our last week. Well ... minus all the blood work and the hospital stay.
We're not through it yet, but today is the first day that we've been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. For Isla, every 3rd diaper or so is an issue instead of each one. And Maryn woke up this morning interested in having breakfast.
And even though I can't believe I'm about to say this -the stomach bug may have been a bit of a blessing because it got M to the hospital sooner. Yep, M spent Monday-Thursday in isolation at the local hospital for a terrible kidney infection that we later learned led to ecoli bacteria being dumped into her bloodstream. We didn't know any of this on Monday. We just took her over for some IV fluids because she couldn't keep anything down.
Since returning home Thursday she has had little interest in anything and hasn't had the strength to stand or walk, until this morning. Her breathing has been quite labored and her voice has been one word at a time of the faintest, softest, heartbreakingly sweetest whisper you can possibly imagine.
We might need another week to fully recover and get the household in order, but, slowly, we'll get there.
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