The night after Disneyland, Mitchell got very sick.
There was no warning. No fever. Just the inundated flow of vomit. I don’t know where it all came from, but it had to come out, and out it came. Poor Mitchell couldn’t verbalise how he felt and was incredibly distressed.
However it became worse when he started to roll his eyes (which looked like black eyes at the time) and we decided it was time to take him to the ER. I can’t describe how scary it is to be in a taxi racing to a hospital you know is barely 5 minutes away yet be stuck in Hong Kong traffic. (In hindsight the taxi driver probably also thought we were nuts because we were panicking with Mitchell as his head rolled and we tried to keep him conscious). Anyways, we ran into the hospital and they didn’t muck around. They checked him out straight away and told us it was just a simple virus. Simple in that he kept spewing his guts out even IN the ER… I don’t consider that simple but who am I to argue with the experts.
They prescribed a suppository to help him stop throwing up and sent us home (I know it probably sounds a lot simpler than it actually was). We later discovered when we visited the pediatrician on the Monday that this was the wrong thing for them to give him as it upset his stomach even more.
Either way, it had let him sleep for about 5 hours without continually yocking up. Unfortunately we had almost a week of him throwing up (even when he had no food in his stomach), particularly around 2.30 am in the morning, and 2 visits to the pediatrician to make sure he was “ok”.
I felt utterly helpless because it wasn’t something we could just make go away, or simply make better. Worse, I am a ’sympathetic vomiter’ so I wasn’t the best of help when Mitchell had an episode. Mitchell was scared and upset and rightly so. My happy little boy wasn’t very happy at all and there wasn’t much we could do to help except clean him up every time. Added to this, daddy was away in the Philippines for work and it made me extra panicky and extra stressed.
Fortunately our helper was a trooper. She confidently held Mitchell even when my stomach wouldn’t let me. She didn’t blink at cleaning up and putting yet another set of bedding into the wash. She stayed strong when I crumbled and help me keep my senses about me. I am very grateful.
Mitchell didn’t want to eat and got de-hydrated. I felt like a bad mum. Thoughts along the lines of ‘how could I let this happen’ kept swirling through my mind. It was noticeable that he wasn’t well and loosing weight. I can’t convey how worried I was getting that I would have to take him back to the hospital with the prospect of a longer stay and the trauma of cannulas and the like again. (Mitchell gets extremely traumatised every time he has to stay in hospital)
The night daddy came home was the first time Mitchell smiled in 5 days. Hints of our little man re-emerged, despite an additional episode of vomiting. He even got some of his appetite back. All up, 6 days before the virus cleared his system, and it has left his little stomach sensitive so we have to be careful it doesn’t get upset for the next few days to make sure everything is settled down and back to normal.
As a mum, my children getting sick is one of the worst things I have to contend with. It breaks my heart and I feel so helpless. It brings my worst fears to the forefront and gives me a sense of being out of control. Now Mitchell is recovered, I worry about ‘next time’. What is around the corner waiting to torture him next. Should I put him in a bubble for fear of things getting worse?
Of course I won’t shelter him in a bubble. Like it or hate it, as much as he has no immunity, his body needs to learn to fight these virus’s and we need to manage him as best we can, trust in the doctors and hope for the best.
It is a hard thing to do when it is your own children in the firing line. Don’t you think?
