photo courtesy of Ohmega1982 at http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Last week I wrote about being fructosed. I was. It was rotten.
It also served to mask the early symptoms of a stomach bug. One I didn’t decide I actually had until Wednesday.
That’s right; I had a vicious stomach bug that took me at least three days to diagnose.
Further proof, in case any of us needed it, that being a family of chronically sick people sucks. If it took me three days to figure out *I* was sick, how hard is it to figure out when my kids are sick? Considering that many of their FPIES/FructMal/food issue symptoms often mimic normal maladies, well, pretty hard!
In fact, it took us until Friday night (of course! We’ve already established that kids don’t need a doctor until the weekend, right?) to figure out that JED had the stomach bug, too!
photo courtesy of artzsamui at http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Jed looked kinda like this. Only with screaming. And crying. And LOTS of whining.
I’d thought that his behavior the last week was a combination of the Terroristic Three’s and FructMal reactions.
He was whiny, argumentative, had a poor appetite and nasty diapers, and slept rotten.
Finally, on Friday he was SO awful, refused to eat all day long, and pitched such a fit in the evening we suddenly had a light bulb moment: “Gee, I wonder if he’s got the same stomach bug I do?”
Well, duh.
Here’s where hindsight is 20/20. Since Tuesday, he’d been saying “My tummy rumbling” throughout the day.
I was thrilled that he was finally starting to recognize the difference between his tummy hurting him and being hungry! We always joke with him that “Your tummy must be rumbling!” when we know he’s hungry.
Thursday I noticed he felt a little warm, but it was a very hot day so I didn’t put a lot of thought into it. Of course he feels warm when we’re outside in the heat, right?
Friday night, though, we took his temperature. Yup. 100.1 degrees. Not a real fever, but definitely a sign something isn’t right.
He told us his tummy was rumbling and flat refused to put a single bite of any food in his mouth.
Then he fell asleep on the couch.
Hold the phone! This child never slows down enough to fall asleep in the daytime!
I hate how our sons maladies make it so hard to diagnose them with normal childhood illnesses. Now I feel guilty that I blew off his pain all week as just more of the typical issues he has. I took away many a toy train this week as consequences of his bad behavior that probably were simply his way of coping with feeling like hammered doggie doo-doo.
Cue the Mommy Guilt.
On top of all this, Zac is trying to get not just his second molar, but BOTH incisors as well! The poor baby is just a mouth full o’ pain right now! This, of course, made for a fun week last week, and a fun weekend this weekend.
We were all awake every one to two hours all night long for the last four or five nights.
Finally, on Sunday I felt almost normal tummy-wise. Jed seemed to bounce back just about the same time.
So we ate like little starving piggies on Sunday. Oink oink, y’all.
Zac is almost ready to re-start his Alimentum RTF trial, after an extended FPIES reaction. After his next “clear” diaper, we’re ready to begin anew.
So that’s our little health update; how are things in your world?
