Surfergeeks

So, last night was the first time Rob and I had to basically stay away all night taking care of our sick child.  Alex has had colds before, where he woken up in the middle of the night, a little stuffy and needing his soother, but last night was much different.

Around 10PM last night, Alex starts screaming in his crib.  Rob goes in to check on him figuring he just lost his soother or had a bad dream.  A short time later, I hear Rob ask for help.  I come into the bedroom wondering what is wrong, thinking possibly Alex had a really leaky poop.  It turns out, he had vomitted all over his mattress.  Poor kid.  He’s still screaming and shaking.  He’s all clammy and he’s pale.  He’s definitely not feeling well.

After cleaning him up, changing his clothes, washing him off, changing the sheets, cleaning us up, since he was covered in the stuff and we had to pick him up to start cleaning, the three of us head to the livingroom.  I figure Alex is not going to want to go back to sleep right away, so sitting with us in the livingroom will help him calm down and feel better.

Probably 30 minutes later, Alex is acting tired.  Rubbing his eyes and being slightly fussy.  So I try to put him back to his crib.  Ten minutes later (during this whole time there was complete silence, so he had fallen right to sleep), more screaming.  We check, and yup, he has puked again.  So, we clean up again and return to the livingroom.  It looks like we will be spending the night out here.  Rob gets a bucket and we start our vigil.

Unfortunately, for my little guy about every hour to hour and a half, his stomach starts churning and up it comes.  Fortunately, between bouts Alex would fall asleep.  But as soon as he woke, we knew to quickly get him to the bucket.  So basically Rob slept on the one side of the couch and I craddle Alex in my arms and dozed on the other side.

This went on until about 5:30 AM.  Alex woke again, but he didn’t seem to need the bucket.  In fact, he kept motioning for the bottle of water we had ready for him.  He hadn’t wanted any earlier in the night, even though we tried, so I was happy to give it to him.  He started drinking and drank about a quarter of the bottle.  He seemed less pale and more alert too.  But, without any warning, a few minutes later, all the water came right back up.  Time to clean up including some of the couch as well.
After that, he still wanted water.  So Rob gave him some, but in stages, hopefully so that it would stay down.  It seemed to, so the three of us curled up in our spots on the couch again to wait and see.

It was around 8:30AM when I woke from a doze and I saw Alex opening and closing his eyes.  He was just working his way to wakefulness.  He looked much better.  There was colour in his cheeks and he wasn’t clammy anymore.  In fact, when Freya came to investigate he wanted to play with her.  I’ve also given him a little food and some milk and he’s had no further problems.  He seems his typical self again this morning.

So the damage total:

3 pairs of pj’s
3 of my T-shirts
2 sheets
1 of Rob’s shirts
1 couch

Not bad for his first time vomitting.