norovirus

So here's our current fun - TMI about illness, but what an adventure: 

Went to Michigan this weekend to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday.  On Saturday afternoon, while visiting great-grandma at her care center, Andrew vomited twice, just right out of the blue.  I was so shocked at the volume coming out of his body.  My mom was like, "Maybe he had a gas bubble and just burped up."  And I'm like, no, dude, that's some serious vomit right there.  Following this was watery (!!) diarrhea, uncontainable by a diaper, and so every single diaper change was accompanied by a clothes change.  He was put on a diet of exclusively pedialyte that first day, and then a mix of formula/pedialyte thereafter.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, flying home to Colorado.  Travis needed to use the barf bag on the airplane.  I barely was able to get him from the plane (which came in to the absolute farthest gate possible, of course) to the curb.  We needed 3 bathroom breaks (with various uses of the toilet, if you know what I mean).  I made the executive decision to get a hotel room near the airport for the night, instead of attempting the drive to our house in the foothills (a solid hour away, and oh by the way, under 3 feet of snow from the weekend storm).  I got them to the hotel and checked in, got Andrew to sleep in the pack and play, got Travis set up in the bed with a bucket and a clear path to the toilet, then I took off to go get our car out of the parking lot (we had taken the hotel's shuttle for quickness/convenience), and go to the store for supplies.  

At Walmart, I started feeling lightheaded and nauseous, but figured it was because I hadn't eaten anything in quite sometime.  And you know, pregnant.  So I made the awesome mistake of stopping at Wendy's for a sandwich, although I did put some thought into what would be most benign if I was forced to see it a second time (so that was no to the chili, yes to the chicken sandwich).  As soon as I got back to the hotel, I laid down in the bed with severe stomach cramps, and within a half hour I had yakked the first time.

Sometime in the middle of that miserable night, I posted about it to facebook, and my mom said that both she and my dad had the same, along with my brother and sister-in-law.  Of the eight of us that were together that weekend, only my baby brother escaped.  Andrew had it Saturday, then starting about 30 hours later, it took down 6 adults within 6 hours of each other.

Yesterday was miserable.  Thankfully, Andrew seemed to be feeling better, and he mostly self-entertained all day long (what a trooper!) in addition to taking two significantly long naps.  Travis and I eventually had to get up the gumption to get up, pack up, and go home.  As we were driving home, the roads (including our road!!) were all clear and dry, and we thought, well, hey, maybe this won't be as bad as we thought.  Wishful thinking.  All 3 feet of snow were still on the driveway, barely compacted at all.  So we packed up the essentials and left the rest in the car.  Travis carried Andrew and I carried the laptops and the pedialyte (this tells you where the priorities lie), and we waded up to the house.  Let me put our driveway in perspective for you.  It is about 1/8 mile long (maybe just a bit longer) and gains about 125 ft of elevation.  It's a bit of a hike on a dry day.  Now imagine being up to your thighs in snow, lugging 20 lbs of baby and/or laptops.  While sick as a dog.  Oh, and pregnant.  Totally awesome.

I seriously considered calling for professional help yesterday.  We have no family in town (and even if we did, they were all sick too!).  We didn't want to call a friend who would understand the driveway situation because we didn't want them to get sick too.  I seriously considered calling the midwives and getting a doula or a nurse or someone like that to come over, but then they'd have to wade/hike/snowshoe up the driveway too!!  I felt really super duper alone.

We are all much better this morning.  We slept like rocks last night.  I just changed Andrew's first normal looking diapers (one wet, one dirty) in 2.5 days.  Travis has found the gumption to snowblow the driveway.  I have eaten some scrambled eggs.  My brother suspects norovirus - the kind of stomach virus that takes down entire cruise ships - and I think that's a pretty good guess.

Stay healthy, my friends.  And use hand sanitizer.