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2007-07-12 - 10.30pm previous entry next entry
Frantic anxious rambly type stuff
Oh but first, thank you SO much for the messages after my last entry! I guess I wrote the entry just to vent but how encouraging it was to read such sweet messages! Shannon, I just love you. Your message was like... my shoulders literally dropped 4 inches, I felt so refreshed and reassured to read your words. I sooooo needed reminding of those things. It's SUCH helpful spiritual advice that I would almost like to post the whole thing here in a diary entry. Would that be okay? Then I (or anyone else) could refer to it again when needed! Thank you so much :)
Okay, so I should probably follow that same advice this evening but I'm feeling toooooo freaked out and panicky right now. So yesterday (Wednesday) I was all out of ideas for things to do with the boys. We went to Tumble Tots on Tuesday as normal, and though it was hard and I felt gross, it actually made the day pass so much easier. So I thought I would not manage so well without something to go and do each day. We had Fellowship Group this morning, but nothing planned for Wednesday. So I remembered that the huge mother-and-toddler group around the corner meets on Monday and Wednesday. I decided to take the boys after Matthew woke from his morning nap. We only got there for the last 45 minutes, but it was still an activity for the little ones.
We hadn't been there since September, because I hate my kids getting sick and Arthur got a couple of colds one after the other. Which is normal and not a terrible thing really. And then he got that AWFUL gastroenteritis bug where we had to take him to Children's A&E in the end. He didn't get it at the playgroup but still. I know a TON of people (most people, I think) would disagree with me on keeping my kids back from groups because of catching bugs. It IS too paranoid of me, but I also don't see the NEED for kids to go to groups. I see WHY they go - socialisation. But I read up on that a lot when we first considered homeschooling and discovered in fact that kids DON'T need to go to school/nursery/playgroup for their social needs to be met. On a completely separate matter, I also read at a different time about children's young immune systems and their need to be given stuff to work on. It has NEVER sat right in my gut that this means exposing them to viral illnesses. So, in order for your child to be healthy, he/she needs to go out and get sick sick sick! The sicker the better! That just doesn't sit right with me. From a Biblical perspective either. From what I read, the BEST way to build a child's immune system is actually exposure to endotoxins, not viruses. Endotoxins are what bacteria give off when they die, and the best source of those is, well, poo. Kids in large families and kids who live on farms or who have lots of animals in the house are the least likely to have underdeveloped immune system issues, and they have in common exposure to trace amounts of faeces. Anyway, no getting sick for these kids (more than normal stuff anyway), because their immune systems are being strengthened while they play all healthy and happy. THAT seems like the way it was meant to be, to me.
Anyway, I don't want to get into that whole theory/debate (not that it's a debate, but now that I've extended it as a theory, it has HUGE potential to become one *sigh*) in this entry, but I just needed to outline my feelings on it so it's clear where I am coming from on this issue. From the beginning of last year, when Arthur was a month or two older than Matthew is now, I started taking him to the playgroup round the corner. We went every Wednesday. Well, actually, every other Wednesday, because he would pick something up EVERY WEEK, and be off sick the following week. After 7 times in a row, I stopped taking him till the summer, because I was fed up seeing his immune system get a thrashing.
Anyway, we haven't been anywhere like that in ages because of how I feel about it. The boys don't miss it, though Arthur did enjoy it when we were there. Matthew seemed a bit quiet, but crawled around a lot. He wanted to sit and look more than play with toys. He didn't seem unconfident at all, even with like SEVENTY toddlers and babies there and the incredible noise of the place. He was fine, and didn't look for me until another baby whacked him in the face, and then he cried and was less sure. I held him a lot after that, but he still did some crawling around and picked up some toys and stuff. Arthur ran about and played as he always did, not really looking for me at all. He wouldn't join in the singing time, but he NEVER does, anywhere we go where they do singing!
There is only next week left in the term and then there's no more playgroup till September, by which time I hope we will have moved away. I sort of wanted to just see the lady I'd befriended, to tell her we were moving away and that I was pregnant again, and see how she was doing. Also, it was something local to do, easy to get to, and a good activity for the kids. It's July, so I hoped we might be less likely to pick up some lurgy than in the lurgy season.
So Wednesday morning. Now it's Thursday late evening, and Matthew just woke and threw up in his cot. I can't be bothered to repeat the dull story of my life-long phobia of vomiting, so that line will have to do as background to those who read here and do not know about that part of me. So of course now I am TERRIFIED. I am trying not to be, but hello?! Really, it's a stomach bug, isn't it? Spot-on incubation time (in fact, the last time I had a throwy-up type of stomach bug (April 1994!), I caught it at a playgroup I was volunteering at on a Wednesday morning and threw up at pretty much exactly the same time as Matthew did, on the Thursday evening), and Matthew has never thrown up in his life before, so it's not likely to be a random something-else.
Good things:
* He woke, threw up, cried a tiny bit, but no more than he usually does to tell us he's awake, and then was completely calm and wanting to get back to sleep. So, he wasn't distressed by it, and that's good.
* That was about an hour and 40 minutes ago. No more vomiting since then is a good thing, right? I know it doesn't mean he WON'T throw up again, but in my experience with stomach bugs (esp. bad ones, or with little kids), after the first upchuck, you pretty much do it again within like 20-30 minutes, sometimes after 10 minutes even. So it's got to be a positive thing that he hasn't had to throw up again yet, right?
* He's sleeping peacefully at the moment.
* So far no signs of diarrhoea - something we have NEVER had to deal with yet with our kids, and sooooooooooo don't relish the idea with cloth nappies!
* The rest of us are (so far) feeling fine.
Bad things:
* Oh my gosh I feel so panicky and don't now how to rise above the drowning feeling. I'm TERRIFIED I'll come down with it and have to throw up. Terrified. And there's nothing I can do about it. But pray, which I have been. But I am so faithless about it because I'm so busy being scared, so it's just "God help me!" prayer - the type where you believe you're going to get sick but you beg God not to let you. Not the faith-filled type where you trust God to protect you and don't have the fear therefore. *sigh* I just can't get to the place to pray like that. I'm so overwhelmed and scared about it. I am trying to remember what Shannon said about God not giving me more than I can bear, and that it's TRUTH.
* It's Neil's last day at work tomorrow. That's not really on the "bad things" list I suppose, but right now he's wondering about staying home because who knows what tomorrow will bring, sickness wise. He has a work gathering in the evening because he's leaving, at the local pub to where he works. He said this evening (before Matthew woke and threw up) that he sort of wouldn't mind getting out of it by saying he had a family emergency or something! It makes me shudder to think of him having said that now. I hope we DON'T have a family emergency by tomorrow evening!
* I'm scared about the night. Do I nurse Matthew when he wakes? Obviously, yes, I should. He normally wakes 3-ish times per night to nurse still. But I'm scared to put stuff in his tummy! I KNOW I mustn't restrict him because he needs his fluids, and there are no fluids out there better for him than breastmilk at a time like this. I guess I'm scared from when Arthur had gastroenteritis, because he threw up every drop of milk I let him take from me, for like a week straight, and in the end it got me so panicky, feeling like *I* was making him sick, even though he was longing to breastfeed. In the end, I had to reduce the amount he got to SUCH a tiny amount so that he could tolerate it - only 5 sucks (5mls of fluid in a syringe) every 5 minutes at first. I'm anxious to restrict Matthew too much though, because he does NOT take well to being taken off the breast at night! He always has his fill and then decides for himself to come off the breast. He cries and is hard to console otherwise, and I don't want to risk that in the night since he's poorly and I don't want to disturb Arthur.
* Even if he DOESN'T throw up again (unlikely though that is) - what on earth do I do with him, food wise, in the morning?! Will he be eager for his usual breakfast? Do I offer it to him? Do I restrict him from having solid food? What do I do?! I just don't want to make anything worse for him.
* So scared that Arthur will start throwing up too. He's more likely to be distressed about it, and who knows, might suffer from it worse than Matthew? Matthew has only ever had the MILDEST strains of things like colds that Arthur has had. He has only had two colds actually. That's it. And this now. He didn't catch the gastro bug that Arthur had, but I SOAPED my breasts before I nursed him. Oh my gosh. But it was worth the rawness!
* We have all sorts of things happening on Monday (I know it's only Thursday, but he'll be infectious at least 48 hours after the last vomit/diarrhoea, and it'll be longer if any of the rest of us come down with it) - Neil's sister is supposed to arrive to stay with us till Saturday, to help us sort out the house/look after the boys. We have a guy from church coming to do the DIY bits that need finishing. The Health Visitor is coming to do Matthew's 12-month follow up of his weight and vision thingy. All of us getting sick could seriously cause problems with our ONLY good stretch of time where we can actually make a good dent in some house stuff, that week that Neil is between jobs and at home. People can't come if we're infectious with a lurgy.
The first thing I felt when Matthew was sick, was how angry I was that I went back to the playgroup. EVERY darn time, we catch something, and it sucks. I know it's all "good" for the immune system, blah blah blah, but you know how I feel about that. It does not make me feel better. I would rather stay away from big groups than have my little ones sick ALL the time. I know all the benefits to early exposure. But I still don't care. Matthew is actually great at working his own immune system! He licks floors and I NEVER saw a baby put so much in his mouth as Matthew does. All babies do, but Matthew is just in his own league with this stuff! Everywhere we go, he licks floors, spends ages picking at cracks in floorboards and eating whatever he gets out. Our home is HIDEOUSLY unhygenic, which, let's face it, is actually no bad thing for the boys' immune systems! ;) The crap (not literally!) on our floors.... Matthew has some unidentifiable object from the carpet in his mouth at least a dozen times a day. Usually old snack crumbs or whatnot, nothing dangerous, just gross. Although last month Neil did prise a long-dead woodlouse out of his mouth, urrrgh! Good endotoxins in that, I should think! ;)
So he does his own thing at building up his immune system, and he doesn't get sick from it. A part of me (the clutchy-strawsy part me) is wondering if it's possible that he could have ingested something that made him need to throw up just the once, and not actually make him unwell like a virus does. Certainly not infectious. Does that really happen, or is it a myth? I know I hear sometimes, "Oh maybe it was something he ate?" but really, does that ever actually happen? Mostly it's viral bugs, isn't it. If we hadn't been to playgroup with such perfect timing for a bug right now, I would be wondering about something he ingested, since we hadn't really been anywhere else that he could have caught something. But we did. So that IS the likely reason, isn't it?
Urrrrrgh. I am so angry with myself for taking them there again. I can't believe I did it. I did have a nagging voice at the back of my mind about the fact that we always seem to catch something when we go there. But I thought, "Ah well, it's July. We could possibly catch a summer cold? Hopefully we'll be okay." and just went anyway. Urgh! If we were living here for a good while longer, I would still NEVER take them back there again. We go to Tumble Tots, and I'm interested to enrol the boys in other small groups for fun activities. I know they'll be exposed to bugs and colds there, but it's not the same as Germ Central down the road there, with over 70 toddlers each session.
Anyway. It has now been 2 hours since Matthew threw up and he's still sleeping peacefully. It's 11.45pm so I should go to bed. I'm extremely anxious about the night, so I'm procrastination over going to bed. I'm nervous to go to sleep for fear of waking up in pitch blackness to a) the sound of Matthew throwing up, b) the sound of Arthur throwing up, or c) feeling sick and knowing I have got a bug and can't escape throwing up.
Also, I am nervous about when Matthew wakes even NOT to throw up, because of nursing him and wondering if he'll keep it down, etc. It's times like these that I feel so insecure that I long to sleep with the light on. I think the last time I felt THAT insecure was when I was bleeding during my pregnancy with Arthur. Or maybe the all-night nosebleed with his pregnancy? Otherwise not since my childhood really. I just feel so insecure being the parent in a vomity situation! I still need my own parents when I'm faced with sickness! I get so scared. *sigh*
Anyway. Neil and I have both prayed over Matthew while he was sleeping, and we've prayed (individually) for the rest of us. We'll wash our hands and hope and pray. I just hope Arthur doesn't get it. I pray that it won't turn out to be something awful or distressing eventually, or something that just drags on and ON. So many of these things do these days, it seems. I just don't even want Matthew to be sick again at ALL. And everyone else to stay healthy. Please God?
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