Return of the Rotavirus????

Posted on 21. Apr, 2008 by Jillian in Glycogen Storage Disease

Probably not, but it got you to read the blog.  The boys caught a flu that was going around this last week. It started on Monday night when Dallin threw up while drinking his 8pm Cornstarch/ Prosobee bottle. We despise feeding pumps, for obvious reasons, so after checking his blood sugar we gave him a half dose and then another an hour and a half later. All was well till 11:00 cornstarch. Again, we gave him a half dose, but I think I pushed the syringe a bit too fast and… it was time for a bath and a feeding pump. He seemed to do alright with the pump until about 3:30. I was beginning to wonder how many times I could change a crib sheet in one night. Then vomiting was then accompanied by its co-conspirator Mr. Diarrhea. Charming. 

Tuesday morning we had a long awaited meeting with the school which I considered canceling, but when I found out that since it wasn’t an IEP meeting, they could hold it without me we decided it would be best to go- even with Dallin’s latest bout at 5:00. We have a home health aide that has worked here for over a year and a half, as well as a back up person, and she promised to call us at the school (5 minutes away) if there was any more trouble. He was good during the meeting. He threw up a few more times that day (and night), but his blood sugar held so we didn’t have to get him an I.V. HUGE relief. I slept on the couch with him and Ben took care of all of the cornstarches upstairs.  

Unfortunately, what goes around- Jonny eventually catches. Wednesday both of the little boys were on feeding pumps. I’d had about 6 hours of inconsecutive sleep in the last 48 hours, and I wasn’t exactly at my best, as Ben can attest. It was so nice to have Roz come that night. She is such a wonderful woman, and one of the few people I can trust to take care of the boys. Dallin was a lot better by then, but we kept him on the pump in his crib that night while Jonny stayed downstairs on the couch. Roz took care of EVERYTHING. Jonny had trouble at 11:30 and 3:00, but she just woke me up to let me know what had happened and that it was under control, and I gratefully drifted right back to sleep. Aaaaaaaahhhh the peace.

Of course, the drama doesn’t end there. While I was able to get a wonderful night’s sleep on Wednesday, I was dead tired again by 11:00 starch on Thursday. As a result, when I did our routine check of the alarm clocks, I just looked to see that the little dots that say the alarms are on were lit- I didn’t check to see what time they were set to.

I woke up at, what always feels like, right after I fell asleep. Glanced at the clock that had a 2 and did cornstarch for all four boys. The next thing I knew Ben was turning off the alarm, walking into the boys’ bathroom (where we keep the cornstarch) and asked

“Did you already do 2:00 cornstarch?”

“Yep” I said, expecting the gratitude that was due to me for not waking him up to help me.

“Ummm…. When did you do it?”

“At 2:00, of course.” When else would I have done it silly man?

“It’s 2 now.”

Stunned silence.

It turns out that one of our darling little mischief makers had been playing with the alarm clocks- again. I’d done cornstarch at 12:30 instead of 2:00. Luckily we’ve learned to keep two alarms set for 2:00.

So, now we had to do math at 2 in the morning to figure out how we were going to get back on track. We ended up doing half doses at 3:30 which required more math to re-measure their doses and waking up AGAIN in the middle of the night. I was not a happy camper- especially since it was my mistake.

 By Friday they still had diarrhea, thanks in part to a double whammy of cornstarch I’m sure, but no one needed to be on feeding pumps anymore. Unfortunately, two of the people that we have here to help, were now sick. We ended up missing therapy, and I forgot to call which always makes me feel inept.

Later that morning I was whining to the one home health aide that wasn’t sick about something that wasn’t really a big deal, I just felt like whining. I heard her get a phone call about 11:00, and then she was a little more quiet than usual, but I was so self absorbed that I didn’t really notice. At 11:30 she came in to ask if she could leave early because of a family emergency. When I heard her real problem I asked why she hadn’t left half an hour before. She wanted to make sure that we had enough cornstarch and formula measure out for the weekend. I felt about as tall as a ladybug.

Saturday was a pretty good day. Roz came back again that night. Ooooh the bliss of a full nights’ sleep. Sorry to brag. Sunday, Ethan had diarrhea, but that was all.

Today, Monday, Mark also has the nasty diarrhea. Luke started barking like a mad dog in his little kennel in the kitchen around 1:40, but I thought he just wanted out, and I couldn’t watch him. Mark had been wandering from room to room, instead of his usual running, and so we decided to check his blood sugar. He was at 56. While Angelica ran to get a pixie stix, I brought Luke over to Mark. Luke was still pretty excited and kept trying to sniff Mark’s still bleeding finger. He got a doggy biscuit. We’re trying to figure out a good way for him to alert us. Barking is inappropriate in public, and he’s excited waaaay too often to make that an accurate way. Any ideas?