Terrible Tuesdays

As you read earlier we were able to bring Hailey home on Monther's Day. We spent Monday adjusting to life with her home and even ran to the grocery store for some badly needed supplies. Tuesday morning Kevin's parents arrived to help us out for the first two weeks. Everything was going fine until Tuesday night, May 12 when Sarah started throwing up. She threw up all night and had a fever of about 102. Wednesday morning she was looking a little better and we were able to get some saltine crackers and Gatorade into her. For a while we thought she was over the worst of it until she woke up from her nap in the afternoon. Her fever was over 104 and she was still throwing up. By this time she had also developed a dry cough and I kept telling myself "she has the flu". She also had not had a wet diaper in 24 hours so Kevin's dad and I took her to the doctor late that afternoon. I told the doctor all her symptoms and she looked Sarah over. At that point the doctor was not too concerned about dehydration because Sarah was crying big tears and her mouth was moist. But she did look at me and said she thought Sarah might have the flu. I told her that's what I thought it was and she asked if she could test Sarah for both the flu and strep throat. I told her to go ahead. 15 minutes later her flu test came back positive. Sarah had type A flu. They couldn't tell us whether it was Swine flu or not but she did have the flu. So the doctor wrote out a few antiviral prescriptions for Sarah and advised all adults in the house to get on Tamiflu which would help prevent us from getting the flu and lessen symptoms if we did get it. I looked at the doctor and asked her what would happen if Hailey got it. She said it would be really bad because there isn't much they could do for her except take her to the hospital, hook her up to ivs and do a lot of blood work on her.

As soon as we left the doctor's office I called Kevin and had him call my OB to get me on Tamiflu. Kevin also called our Bishop who is a doctor to have him call in Tamiflu prescriptions for Kevin and his parents. In the mean time Kevin's dad and I went to the nearest Walgreens to get Sarah's prescription filled and pick up mine which had been called in at that point. With the scare of the Swine flu lately our Walgreens was out of the Tamilfu. By this point I was in tears and told the pharmacist that I had a five day old baby and my two year old had the flu and I really needed the medication. She checked in her system and found another Walgreens not too far away that had plenty of the medication we needed. So I fought rush hour traffic on the freeway trying to get to this other Walgreens and waited for about 20 minutes for it to be filled. We finally got back home about 5:30 in the evening. All of us sat down together and talked about how we were going to minimize exposure to Hailey. We decided to have Dad and Kevin take care of Sarah and Mom and I take care of Hailey. We wouldn't have them in the same room together and if any of us touched Sarah we would change clothes before handling Hailey again.

We got Sarah ready for bed and gave her her medicine at about 7:30pm and put her to bed. At 8:30 she woke up throwing up in her bed. I freaked out at this point because here we had the medicine to make her better but her body was rejecting everything. Her fever was really high again as well so I got a bunch of towels wet with cold water and had to sponge her off to cool her down. Kevin called the on-call pediatrician at Sarah's pediatric office and told him everything that had been going on. We were hoping he could prescribe a suppository to stop the vomiting so we could get the medicine in her that we needed to. The doctor told Kevin we needed to take her to Children's Hospital about 15 minutes from our house. I was balling uncontrollably at this point because I was so afraid for Sarah. I wanted so bad to hold her and comfort her but couldn't because I had to take care of Hailey and couldn't spread the germs.

Kevin and his dad took Sarah to the hospital and I went to town cleaning the house because I couldn't sit and do nothing. So I spent two house using Pine Sol to disinfect the house and cleaned it top to bottom. About midnight Kevin finally called to give me an update. When they got to the hospital they had Sarah wear one of those medical face masks to contain the germs. They had to wait a while until a room was available but they finally got into one. The doctors put an iv into her and gave her two bags of saline to rehydrate her. They also gave her some Tylenol for her fever and medication to stop the vomiting. Kevin said Sarah was very brave when they put the needle into her hand and all the doctors and nurses were amazing with her. They gave her a big Tinkerbell blanket, three books and stickers all to take home with her. I was able to talk to Sarah over the phone and as soon as she heard my voice she started crying because she wanted to see me so bad. I told her the doctors were going to make her better and how much I loved her. I also told her she would be able to come home soon. She fell asleep right after we got off the phone and was still asleep when Kevin and Dad got home with her at 3:30am.

Sarah greatly improved after that. We were able to start giving her the medication and she pretty much slept for three days making up for all the sleep she lost the previous few days. By the following Monday she was pretty much back to normal and we were able to interact with her again. I had taken Hailey to the doctor for her 10 day checkup that morning and he told me Sarah would be fine to be around Hailey again. Children's Hospital called and told us Sarah did not have the Swine flu but a strain that was worse. We were so greatful that Sarah was feeling better. So things were starting to get back to some sense of normality...or so we thought.

The next day, Tuesday the 19th Kevin came down with the flu. He had come home from work early that day because he was so tired and couldn't concentrate. He took a nap when he got home and when he woke up he had a fever of 102 and felt really nauseous. We were all stunned because we thought if anyone else was going to get sick it would have happened already. Well, I now had to take care of Sarah, Hailey and Kevin. Luckily Kevin's parents were still in town and helped out with the girls. Kevin just stayed in our room for a few days so it was easier to contain the sickness and keep it away from Hailey. I couldn't sleep in our bed though so I ended up sleeping in the recliner in Hailey's room for two nights. Because Kevin had been on Tamiflu it never got as bad as Sarah had it. He had a fever, body aches, some nausea (he never threw up) and was extremely tired. Well he was sick for a few days and went back to work that Friday. Kevin's parents left that same morning as well. All weekend Kevin and I focused on finding our "normal" routine as a family of four. Things were going well until I came down with the flu on Tuesday the 26th.

Once again Kevin had to take off work to stay home and take care of the girls while I stayed in our room and pretty much took care of myself. I ended up getting the flu a little worse than Kevin did but not as bad as Sarah. By Friday I was pretty much back to normal again. We are hoping that we are totally done with the flu in our house now.

I think the hardest part about all of this is the emotional toll it took on Sarah. It's been really confusing for her because first Mommy went away to have the baby and I wasn't home for three days, then we brought Hailey home and most of my time was spent taking care of her, then Sarah got sick and I couldn't touch her, after that Daddy got sick so Sarah couldn't be around him and finally I got sick and once again Sarah couldn't be around me. She has also had to adjust to having Hailey around and our attention turned to her a lot of the time. Luckily Sarah has not been acting out with Hailey. She loves her so much and is always trying to look at her, hold her and touch her. She gives her hugs and kisses all the time and it's actually a challenge to keep her away from Hailey sometimes. We have caught her in her crib with Hailey a few times now and once we caught Sarah trying to pick up Hailey by herself.

Anyways, things are much better now and we are once again trying to find our new normal. I still feel like things are out of control because this is a big adjustment having a second child to take care of but I just need to give it some time and I know it will settle down.