In sickness and in health

Illness struck our household this weekend, but seems to have moved on now. Sorry for the TMI, but Curly started having diarrhea every other diaper on Thursday afternoon (but no fever). Then during the wee hours of Friday, Strawberry began puking on and off for the next 12 hours, and fighting off a fever which landed her in bed all day on Friday. I had to work from home while taking care of a sick wife and baby, a baby who then had bad diapers every 2 hours and a low grade fever. This was with one of the biggest snowstorms in memory looming for the next day. I called the pediatrician who advised me to keep rehydrating Curly with pedi@lyte (we thankfully had a stock of it) and pay attention for signs of dehydration, including listlessness and no pee diapers, at which point we should head to the ER.

Luckily, Curly sucked down pedi@lyte like it was candy and didn’t give us cause to worry about having to go to the hospital. He did, however, reduce the amount of ounces he was taking in his bottles. Prior to his illness he would drink up to 30 ounces of formula a day. While he was sick, we were lucky if he drank 22. We are very lucky that he is such a big healthy kid, and we didn’t have to worry about this drop in calories for a few days. Fast forward to Saturday, when Strawberry is on the mend (leading us to believe that this illness was a stomach bug or at worst, rotavirus contracted from visiting daycares) and could lend a hand with Curly, whose bad diapers returned to every other one.  The snow fell fast all day, leaving us with about 17 inches.

Sunday was a day of recuperation. With Strawberry feeling much better, we both enjoyed the snow and then shovelled our cars out, with help from some very generous neighbors. Curly seemed to be doing better, however, he still refused to drink his full bottle amounts and acted in pain after drinking 3 or 4 ounces. Time to use Dr. Goo/gle. Apparently, after a bout with a gastrointestinal illness, many infants develop a temporary lactose intolerance until they have time to build up the enzyme that breaks it down again. So out I went to buy a lactose-free formula which, considering we’ve done the last 3 feedings without any problems, seems to have done the trick. We’ll switch him back by the week’s end and see how he does.

I feel like I dodged a bullet with this illness. It was awful taking care of a sick wife and baby. Although I was healthy for the most part, I did have a little solo pity party on Friday night when I lit the last Chanukkah candles by myself. Oh, and I’m recovering from a badly bruised tailbone I got when I fell down the last 5 stairs earlier in the week.

Today, things are better. So far, Curly is back to drinking normal amounts. Strawberry has a snow day off work and I’m working from home again, so as to avoid the roads, which are still rather bad. If we’re all feeling up to it later on, perhaps we’ll venture out for some fun in the snow.

Happy solstice, everyone!