My Living Nightmare

Caution: This is a really gross blog entry.

Anyone who has known me for any period of time knows that I have been terrified of puke. Having six kids has definitely helped a lot. I no longer run away or feel angry with some one who is vomiting. But my main nightmare is about people puking a lot, and often it takes place at a home that is not my own. Well my nightmare came true Monday night/ Tuesday morning. I will try to spare as many gorey details as possible. First, we are living with John's parents while John continues his job search so voila it happened at some one else's house. Second, Rachel came down with the stomach flu Saturday night. I did not find out until Sunday morning because she apparently slept through it. It didn't seem too bad. But John's sister Mary and her 6 kids are here, so we kept her in our bedroom watching TV. The nightmare began about midnight Tuesday morning. Our 4 older kids stayed up very late to watch a movie with their cousins and grandparents. I put Anya and Rachel to bed at the regular time. When the movie had ended, I went to put Adam to bed and found out that Anya had puked in her bed and went back to sleep. When I picked her up, she looked at me and started puking again. John came and put her in the tub and I cleaned up the mess. We then put a porta-crib in our room for Anya and put the other kids to bed. Around 2 am Anya woke up sick again. Just as we were finished cleaning up Anya, Ruth appeared in our door way. From the look on her face, I knew why she was up and said, "Get to the bathroom quick!!!!" Ruth made a huge mess in and around the toilet. John and I cleaned that up and, laid Ruth on our bedroom floor since she is sharing a bed with Kate. At that moment I noticed Adam moving uncomfortably in his bed. I told him to stay there and throw up on his blanket, which he did, and we had another clean up. While we were cleaning Adam up, Kate woke up. We asked her if she felt sick, and she said yes, so we gave her a bucket. But she just went back to sleep. John and I went back to bed for about 20 minutes when John heard Kate throwing up. Kate made it all into her bucket, so John emptied and cleaned that. Just as John was returning the bucket to Kate, Adam turned to the wall and started puking. I heard John yelling, "No!! In your bucket!!!" Well, I got up. Adam went back to the bathtub. We cleaned the bed, wall, floor, and bucket. When I came back from the laundry room, John said, "Some one in our room has pooped." It was Anya with diarrhea. While John was changing her diaper, Anya threw up again. We cleaned her again, put everyone back to bed, and despairingly and feeling rather ill climbed back into bed ourselves. We were soon woken up by Ruth vomiting again. Then Kate and Adam took a few turns each puking into buckets and having diarrhea. At about 8am Ruth puked again, and Anya had more diarrhea. At this point I was exhausted, disgusted 7 1/2 months pregnant and feeling very ill. I went to the bathroom and dry heaved. Apparently I used up any food in my system cleaning all night. Adam, Ruth, and Kate threw up in turn until about 1pm onTuesday. It seemed to be over. Anya hadn't been sick since 5am and was able to drink some before bedtime. I thought it would be all over if Johnny did not get sick. The next day while I was working on rehydrating Ruth, Kate, Adam, and Anya, Rachel came in my room all whiney and threw up again. I didn't expect that because she hadn't been sick for 48 hours. She threw up three more times and had diarrhea twice yesterday, while the other kids were complaining how hungry they were. John gave me a break last night so I went to the temple with his mother. (That was so nice after all of the trauma.) When I got home, Rachel seemed very listless and dehydrated, so John and I decided to risk more puke-clean-up and get her drinking pedia lite. That meant that John stayed up until 4am getting twelve ounces of liquid into Rachel. She hasn't thrown up again, but we have kept her on a liquid only diet. The other four kids seem to be doing fine, and Johnny has not gotten sick, nor any of the cousins. I truly hope this nightmare is over, and never, NEVER happens again.