It Takes A Village...of Angels

The following blog is not for the weak of stomach. Or those who think they are too hoity toity to read about basic bodily functions, come on, it happens to you too!

Part I
The story begins around 7am Monday morning. I got up early to get to work since we are short-handed and it was a Monday, I knew that it would be wild. I arrived and worked hard for a few hours, enough to earn me a breakfast break with co-workers. I was back hard at work again and get a text from John, "Hey, I'm sick (throwing up/diarrhea). Can u come by and get Quincy to day care when u get a chance?" sent at 9:35am. I text him back that I can't leave but I'll ask anyway. Of course, wonderful boss comes through again and says "go home and be safe, I hear it's going to get bad out there". I'm on the way home, stopping by the grocery store for sprite and a few necessities just in case it actually does "precipitate and stick". So I pull in my parking spot at the grocery store and get a text, saying "Hurry, I'm throwing up and pooping on the pot while Q's cryin'" sent at 10:38am. So, just keep driving through the parking spot, on the way home now. (side note: Q is really congested again, like when he had RSV, so we had scheduled him a doc appt at 2:10 on this day).

I get home and walk in to the smell of sick. You know that public restroom smell times 100. I'm lighting candles, spraying air freshener trying to not touch anything at all. I do not want this. I do know that if I do get it, I'll want certain things done. So, I go into mom mode and start washing essentials: underwear, socks, t-shirts, pj pants. I know that I'll want some clean pj's when I get sick. Then I rush around like a wild woman picking up the house, cleaning all of Q's bottles, looking at recipes on the internet (in case we are stuck inside and I'm not sick and want to cook soup), making a grocery list of things that John may want to eat when he feels better. I mean, I was getting alot accomplished, and fast. I didn't have time to eat lunch. I looked up at it was 1:30pm, time to head to the doctor. I grab my grocery list, Q, and off we go. It is very cold and dreary outside.

We get to the doctor and are sitting in the "sick" waiting room. It is then that I feel the first wave of nausea hit. I told myself, "nah, imagination". The feeling gets worse and more frequent but what do you do? The doc said that Q probably still had RSV and there was nothing they could do unless it progressed. She told me the signs to look for and sent us on our way. We leave the doc's office and are hit with sleet! I was like, "oh no"...I still have to go to the grocery store. John had asked for Sprite at approximately 10am this morning, it is now 3pm, and he still doesn't have it, I HAVE to go to the grocery store. Plus, it really is "precipitating" and it is 27 degrees, I have to go to the grocery store. Well, so does the rest of Little Rock.

It took me about an hour to get a few essentials. I've never taken Q to the grocery store with me. So in the sleeting rain I'm dragging my baby through a crowd of people while fighting nausea myself. We made it home safe and sound around 4:30pm. John is still in bed and I'm in the recliner with Q when it hits me. Not to go into too many details here, but next thing that I had to do was take a shower. I still didn't feel all that bad, yet. I knew at this point that I had whatever it was John had and my next concern was that Quincy would get it. I called my cousin Todd for help. He and his girlfriend were going to come over and spend the night to take care of Q until we realized that they too would get sick. And the roads were getting bad.

I was full on sick by this point and had no idea what to do. I was really sick and so was John...how do we take care of Quincy? He was fussy because of the congestion and wanted to be held...not really possible if you are on the pot and throwing up simultaneously. I thought about friends, family members, babysitters. Nothing really seemed like a viable option. I called my mom in El Dorado (it was 6pm) and she couldn't come because it was already dark and the roads were icy. She said that she could come first thing in the morning but I was thinking that making it through the night was going to be the most difficult.

I have three friends that live extremely close that I feel like I could ask anything of them. I have lots of friends that I feel like I could ask anything of, but many live out of town. I called Heather. Called her first because she is single and thought it might be easiest for her to help us. She wasn't home. I called Shannon, her twin sister. I thought about calling Shannon first because her husband Rory has a big truck and is from Indiana, so he is used to driving in this kind of weather. But, for whatever reason I called Heather first. Shannon wasn't home either. The other person that I thought about calling was Krysta. She lives the closest but she also has a little boy and I didn't want him to get sick. So, I ruled out calling Krysta almost immediately.

Heather called back first. She was going to come until her roommate almost fell in their driveway. Then she thought it might not be a good idea to drive. Next thing I know Shannon is calling with an elaborate plan which involved her and Rory coming to get Q for the night. I'm so sick at this point, I'm just like thinking, "whatever works". Something about Rory having to take Shannon into work the next day and didn't want Q riding in the car with bad weather so they would drop him off at Krysta's during that. More on how that actually went down later.

So I tell John to help me try and get Q's stuff together and he just sort of looks at me. I'm trying to get things together and he is trying to watch Quincy. Sometime in there I'm changing Q and need to run to the bathroom. I can't leave Q on the changing table. "John??" no answer. Oh my gosh, "JOOOOHHHNNNN"??? He slowly walks into the room. I run to the bathroom and return to find Q in the same spot on the table, John sitting down, with one hand on Q to make sure that he didn't roll off, and the other hand supporting his head. "I'm lightheaded" he says. Great. Just great.

Shannon and Rory arrive, we thank them, apologize for the sick smell, and give some instructions. I'm not worried at all, Shannon works at Arkansas Children's Hospital and Rory can entertain a brick wall, Q will have a great time! We are trying to give last minute instructions and I'm feeling faint. I hand Q over to Shannon because I feel too weak to hold him and think that I might drop him. I felt this way right after he was born too. Shannon's mom mode kicks in because she takes Quincy, straps him in, gathers his stuff, says "feel better, don't worry about Quincy" and is out the door. This was about 9:30pm Monday night.

The next memory that I have is not pleasant, well, actually, the next two memories. John and I are in bed and I didn't make it to the bathroom to throw up. Thank goodness for plastic trashcans by the bed! I go back to sleep and wake up to John getting out of bed and then....ugh....this smell. Poop. I'm imagining a parade with horses when it is real cold outside and they poop a huge pile and steam rises up. I ask John if he pooped the bed. He says "yep". I just get up and go to the couch. I saw him throwing a towel on the bed, I assumed to clean it up. I sleep on the couch until about 6:30am when my mom calls saying that she is on her way. Please be careful, I say. Then Shannon calls for updates on plans for Q for the day. I agree with whatever she says. At this point I go to check on John. He is on MY side of the bed....he just threw the towel on his side and took my side. Later our conversation went something like this:

MT: "So what happened last night?"
JT: "Yeah, why did you sleep on the couch?"
MT: "Because you were sleeping on my side of the bed."
JT: "Well I was going to sleep on my side but when I got out of the shower you were gone and I wondered why you moved to the couch. So I took the good side of the bed."
MT: "What if I had been in the bed still?"
JT: "Oh, I was just going to sleep on top of the towel."

Around 11am my mother arrives with phenigrin suppositories, or "bootie bullets" as a friend calls them. I thank her but nicely tell her that when you are puking nothing will stay down, and when you have diarrhea, nothing will stay up. She does laundry (yes this includes our poopie pants and sheets), dishes, sprays Lysol on every molecule in our house. John starts feeling better around 3pm or so. Heather and Rory arrive with our baby. My mom leaves because John says that he feels well enough to take care of Q now. I take 2 phenigrin tablets and go to the dark side. Sometime during that I have a vague memory of John bringing me soup on the couch and falling asleep with it in my hand. He had to practically carry me to bed. Also during that time i apparently called my boss to tell him that I wouldn't be coming into work, and no telling what else. I woke up around 6:30am or so but went back to sleep after 3 peanut butter double stuffed oreos.

Part II
I get a call from Shannon about 12:30pm asking what our symptoms were. Rory is now sick. He called Shannon to come home from work to take him to the hospital. I feel awful. Shannon says that he had texted me earlier for help. I was completely out. I looked back, the text says, "I'm Very sick. Need help. Pls call Shan." I feel even worse. Rory gives a cry for help and I'm sleeping. Shannon later came over to get some Phenigrin for Rory to take and says that she got home to a very very very warm house with Rory lying outside the bathroom door covered in towels. He told her that it took him 20 mins to muster the strength to get from the bathroom to his phone in the living room to text me...we are talking a distance of about 5-7 feet.

Rory was with Quincy the most during this crazy time. Later this is what I found out happened while they were keeping him. When Shannon and Rory got home and got settled it was Rory who was up with him most of the night. Rory said, "all that I knew to do was support the head". Shannon said that he peeked into their room saying, "ok, I've done this this and this, what now?" I guess she instructed him and he followed! There was one time when he said that Q had a dirty diaper and she would have to take care of this because he didn't know what to do. I think around 7am Rory, Shannon, and Quincy left in his big truck to take Shannon to work. Being the insightful and cautious parents that they will be, they dropped Quincy off at our friends Nick and Krysta's so he would be in the car less time, less chance of something happening on the ice roads. Not exactly sure how long he was there, but Krysta gave him a bath and put him in one of Nicholas' old gowns. Rory dropped Shannon off and picked up Heather, then picked up Quincy, then the 3 of them go to Shannon and Rory's house for the day while Heather and Rory babysit.

So now Rory is sick, and I missed his cry for help. Oh man, we feel bad. Actually, we feel a little better, but you get the idea. I'm sure I missed some details and got some things confused, but this is pretty much what happened in the past 48 hours of our lives. So, it does take a village to raise a child...and our village just happens to consist of angels. We love you and thank you for your help!