A Horrible Weekend

I’m a wreck.

Friday afternoon we drove to my parents house. After a fun afternoon fishing in their pond, Darrel and I left the boys with Grandma and PopPop and came home for some alone time.

Very early the next morning, the phone rang.

It was my Mom, calling to tell us that Zac had vomited every 20-30 minutes since 4:30 a.m.

Darrel left to bring the boys home.

On the drive home, Zac projectile vomited bile at least once.

Once home, he snuggled next to me in bed and nursed. Half an hour later, he vomited all over the bed.

After getting us and the bed cleaned up, he nursed again; this time he fell asleep and laid with me in bed for a few hours.

He woke up and we settled him in on the couch while I made myself some food.

A few minutes later he vomited again.

It absolutely rips me apart to watch either of my boys in pain. Zac just sat there, covered in vomit, moaning and whimpering. Sheer agony for both of us.

Darrel took him to take a bath, thinking some hydrotherapy might make him feel a tad better.

It did, but he still got out of the tub whimpering and lethargic.

He went back to the couch and slept for a few more hours.

Throughout it all, whether awake or sleeping, he was pretty much attached to boobies the whole time. Total comfort nursing.

I didn’t mind; it was the best way to make sure he stayed hydrated.

If Zac was awake on Saturday, he wanted to be held. And even after sleeping most of the day, he went right to sleep at bedtime.

He ate nothing all day long. He only nursed and drank water.

Darrel and I spent the day in a state of debate and confusion. Was this a stomach bug (norovirus) or an FPIES reaction to the oats?

Here are the complicating issues for us:

Friday night I had been nauseous. But I wanted to finish reading an eBook on my phone before we got home, and reading in the car often makes me feel nauseous. The nausea left within an hour of being home.

The whole week of the oats trial, every poopy diaper I changed of his was soft, mushy, and had more mucous than typical. Darrel, on the other hand, got lucky. Every poopy diaper HE changed was perfectly normal.

Also during that week, Zac had reddish, sunken rings around his eyes. BUT…his sleep was thrown off quite a bit this week due to strange nap times and last minute scheduling stuff. So maybe he was just not rested enough and that explains the eyes.

My Dad was nauseous after Zac woke up vomiting. But Daddy is like me, and when stressed, his stomach tends to go haywire. Worrying about his Grandson might explain his nausea.

As you can see, things were far from clear on Saturday. 

I sent a message to his speech therapist, apologizing for bothering her on a weekend, but asking if any other kids at therapy were sick this week. If so, I could add more weight to the norovirus theory.

Unfortunately she reported that all the kids in therapy this week were healthy as could be. Of course, she couldn’t vouch for any of their siblings health, but the kids scheduled for therapy were all present and at 100%.

So Darrel and I prayed hard for something that most people would be horrified to imagine praying for: we prayed that the rest of our family would start puking our toenails up in the next 24 hours. 

If we all  got sick, then Zac almost certainly picked up the norovirus somewhere, and he was NOT having an FPIES reaction to oats.

If we didn’t, well, if could still be the norovirus…but it wouldn’t be likely. Stomach bugs are highly contagious, so odds are that we would all get it if one member of the family got it.

So if none of us got sick, then that’s a pretty good bet that FPIES is still hanging around.

And it means that after 10 straight safe food trials, we faced our first unsafe food.

So we prayed for the unthinkable…and waited.

We also implemented some of the lessons I learned about how to make life bearable when your whole family is sick, just in case. We washed all the sheets and linens, cleaned the kitchen, and tidied up the house.

Saturday night Zac slept really well, and Sunday he slowly but surely began bouncing back.

By early evening, he was running and playing, rough-housing with his brother, and pretty much back to normal.

Except for his poops.

He had three yesterday. The first was…okay. Not great. Stinky. More mucous than normal.

The second was almost solid liquid and mucous and smelled awful.

The third was better formed, but had HUGE clumps of mucous.

At that point, it had been 36 hours since he first started vomiting, and not one other member of the family had shown any further signs of nausea.

It was with heart heavy with sadness that I began to prepare dinner.

It seemed my 50/50 proposition had shifted. Now it looked more like 90/10 that Zac still has FPIES.

By bedtime, no one had shown any signs of norovirus.

I’ve heard some people say it took almost a week to get sick from the stomach bug from other family members. But usually it only takes a few days.

So, we still don’t know. FPIES or norovirus? 

All I know is that on his Sunday weigh in, Zac lost two full pounds in weight.

And I didn’t fully appreciate how hopeful and optimistic I had been feeling about Zac outgrowing FPIES until the potential for that was taken away.

I feel a burden on my shoulders I haven’t felt in a while.

It felt good to just be stressed about work, scheduling, and trying to balance food intolerances.

Being stressed about FPIES reactions is a level of stress that is hard to describe. 

I feel like I aged about ten years this weekend. 

Even if it turns out to just be a stomach bug that caused the vomiting, this was an absolutely horrible weekend.

I guess time will tell.