We’ve all been there.  1 AM. Legs spread, wrapped loosely around the basin. Chin awkwardly resting on the porcelain rim, lips quivering from exhaustion. Eyes closed, head rolling slightly left… right… as inaudible, breathy whimpers beg for the heaves to stop. Hands gingerly draping the bowl, fingertips poised to grip yet barely touching for by God, this is a toilet! Red eyes pop open without seeing, and the spine rounds, chills with this sudden disgusting realization…

I lean over the stirring body and whisper in Malcolm’s ear, “Honey, I wipe the toilet down after each vomit, just relax, there you go. It’s OK.”

It’s Christmas Eve’s Eve.  Malcolm, my son in the middle, has been vomiting for four hours every 20 to 30 minutes. I saw it coming.  For three weeks, we have struggled as a family to stay healthy. Sniffles, coughs, fatigue, but nothing serious.  Nothing consequential.  Quietly illness hung amongst our mistletoe, waiting for the opportune moment to drip into our eggnog and poison our glee. And just when I thought we were in the clear, Malcolm is taken out by illness’s worst culprit. The one who ruins all joy deriving from Christmas cookies, roast beef, gravy, veg, Yorkshire and Christmas Pudding… the Stomach Flu.

But this one seems different.  Something is wrong.

My leathery hands reach to his shoulders and gently extricate his face from the toilet and guide his small, six year old body to the crook of my left elbow, his back against my heart. Holding him as I haven’t in recent memory, my body naturally rocks him as his Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight lullaby slips from my lips.

He is out. Shallow breathing. Clammy.  His vomit has gone from yellow to green.  He isn’t shaking, but weak.  I wrap towels and blankets around him for warmth and insert the thermometer into his right ear, as I have all night.  Rocking, I wait for the beep.

94.9

Now I panic.

His temperature has slowly decreased since the vomiting began. I put towels under and around him to shield him for the harsh cold of the tile.  Called the emergency nursing line through our pediatrician, who kindly said “Um, this could be a serious infection. I’ll put a call in to the doctor on call.  If you don’t hear from her in 20 minutes, I would take him to the ER.”

It’s been 9.

I show the temperature to my partner in crime, who, like any amazing teammate, is wiping down the toilet, and make a silent Eek face.

This is my ninth year as a mom and I am dumbfounded.  I am helpless.  I have done everything I can think of to help Malcolm and nothing has worked.  The best I can come up with now is rocking and singing. Basic comfort. How does that serve, really?

In recent years, I know I have become a bit of a panic man when it comes to illness and injury.  Especially, since losing our twin girls at 20 weeks to TTTS in 2014. The experience scarred me, leaving me expose and newly, wholely knowledgeable of loss. You’re their mother.  Your sole job is to protect your babies. Their illnesses or injuries may not be your fault, but you feel like you should be able to fix anything that threatens. And when impossible, that innate fear of losing them becomes so astronomical, you revert to rocking instead of solving.

So I hold. I rock. I sing. Within myself, I swallow away that ever present choking fear. The highly unlikely, but suffocating fear of the, small percentage point that could happen. And I wait, for the phone to ring.

It does.

Jolting to the phone, I run through the symptoms, timeline, steps taken, clothing, and steady decrease in temp. She listens, softly asking the color of vomit, length of time, and type of thermometer. On speaker, with David listening, she guides us to “Take his temperature in the other ear as wax build up can effect the numbers. Have you only been taking the temp from the right ear?” Um, yes!!! It is the only one exposed because I hold them with my left arm, duh!? “Well, take it in the other or by a different gauge… if it is the same, take him to the ER.”

I thanked her for her time and stared silently at my husband, absorbing this new lesson.

We simultaneously pounce on Malcolm, roll him over, stick the thermometer in his left ear, and wait for the beep.

98.9.

Damn Wax! Even sick, they find a way to make you feel incompetent.

 

*Note: Yes, the bug made its way through all five us, and on December 27th… we finally had Christmas Dinner. We all then felt sick, for another reason.