My stomach had started hurting before we left for the bowling alley. It was very strange. I figured my pants were just too tight after all the dessert I had at the holiday party that afternoon and it would go away. It didn't let up for an hour, though, and kept getting worse instead. I wasn't nauseous, my stomach was just killing me.
After we had bowled a couple frames, Susan noticed the look on my face and asked if she should take me home. I was planning to just power through the game, but upon being asked, I realized I should probably go home. I was in agony by then.
In hindsight, thank heaven for Susan. She saved me from puking at the bowling alley. I changed my shoes with some effort and waited inside while she went to get the car. On the 20 minute drive home, I felt the nausea begin to set in. I focused all my efforts on not puking in the rental car. By some miracle, we made it all the way home and I made it into the bathroom in time for the first, horrible evacuation of my upper digestive tract.
I spent the rest of the night lying in bed with the bowl of Valerie's potty on the pillow next to me just in case. Fortunately I did not use it. I ran to the bathroom every 1-2 hours to empty the contents of my stomach, for the last time around 11:30 pm. The worst of the virus mercifully only lasted about 5-6 hours. I was ravenously thirsty and tried to take only tiny sips of water, since they would shortly be rejected. Sometime around midnight, cautiously hopeful that the worst was over, I started chugging more water and was able to get some sleep.
The rest of the family had finished bowling, ordered pizza and came back to the house to eat mini cupcakes and sing happy birthday. I could hear the commotion but could not get out of bed to say hello from the doorway by then. Or goodbye, because everyone went back to the airport and home the next day.
We woke up around 5 am Monday morning (Rich's birthday) to Valerie crying because she threw up in her bed and on the wall next to it. NOOOOOOOOO.... it got her. I was wobbly and exhausted but at least done with the puking, and the last thing I was hoping for was being on toddler vomit alert for the day. Poor baby. It was all in her hair, on her clothes, her sheets... we stripped her down, stripped her bed, laid new sheets and towels down and tried to comfort her. Thank goodness for Adam and Justina, our houseguests for the weekend, who helped clean off the wall and clean up the living area before they packed up and hightailed it out of there.
We set up the kindle by her bed so she could watch shows and I started the first of many, MANY hot loads of laundry.
By the time she was done, I needed to launder everything in the house that could go in the washing machine. Over the next few days I definitely set a personal lifetime record for most loads of laundry, all on the hottest setting. Sheets, towels, blankets, pillows, mattress pads, clothes, cleaning rags... did I mention we started potty training just a few days earlier? Combine weekend guests, potty training and norovirus and what do you get? Near-homicidal volumes of laundry, along with bleaching every bleachable surface in the house.
My dad was coming to visit the following Friday so I wanted to get everything disinfected by then. It was a long week. I was still getting over the lingering effects of the virus, cleaning and doing laundry as fast as I could, and Valerie was home with me all week since we did not want to send that virus to school with her. She seemed totally back to normal on Tuesday, thankfully, but still had to miss school.
Poor Rich really got the shaft on his birthday. He worked from home all day and helped take care of Valerie, and we didn't do any presents or cake or sing. I hadn't even gotten a card yet and I forgot to give him his present (a Betabrand bike-to-work jacket) that day amid the chaos. I made it up to him a little bit on Sunday when my dad was here and we were able to have a night out to celebrate. We went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the theater and went out for sushi in Mountain View - his dream night out. And I did eventually remember to give him the jacket, and a card. I think he has forgiven me for dropping the ball pretty hard this year.
Next year he hits the big 3-5 so I'll have to do something big for that one! Valerie and I sure are lucky to have such an awesome guy to take care of us. And he is lucky - he somehow dodged the virus and never got sick. It must be his blood type. He certainly was exposed!
No comments:
Post a Comment