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2007-07-13 - 11.27pm previous entry next entry
Bug update!
I just wanted to say thanks SO much for the messages after last night's anxious entry, and for all the prayers and reassurance and advice, etc.
Matthew didn't throw up again! Yay! Thank you God! He slept fine but had restless patches. I had hardly ANY sleep, because every time he stirred I was instantly propped up on my elbows, squinting through the dark into his cot (right up against my bed) to see if he was okay. He stirred a LOT. *sigh* He didn't wake properly or seem to want to nurse, despite the mucho stirrings, until 4.30am. He did want to breastfeed then, but he didn't really suck. It's as if he knew he didn't really want to fill his tummy, but he wanted the comfort of being attached to me for a bit, bless his heart. Once my let-down kicked in, I had to take him off the breast after a short while in case he was getting too much at once, and he cried soooo much :( Neil came and helped me rock him and comfort him and settle him. If he wanted more 30 minutes later I would have breastfed him again, but I did NOT want to overfill his delicate little tummy the first time after he threw up. Poor Matthew.
Anyway, he slept then until 7am and I nursed him when he woke, but he did the same thing and didn't suck much. He got quite a bit of milk though. He has been all smiles and his normal happy self from the word go today. The first thing he did when we took him downstairs was to BEAM at Arthur and instantly initiate a game of "Follow" (a crawl-and-chase game they have been playing together for months and months!). He squealed and laughed happily while they played that energetically, and he has basically been like that all day. He has been climbing everywhere and driving me crazy! He has been putting EVERYTHING in his mouth, urgh. There's just no way I can protect Arthur from getting this bug, if it is one.
Matthew has been super clingy at nap times. He has cried inconsolably and cling so hard to my neck if I try to put him down. Which I have HAD to sometimes when I ran out of breath/energy to hold him any longer. But he has napped well in the end, twice. I have not given him any solid food today. I have offered him the breast more frequently and he has taken more and more as the day wore on. At bedtime he sucked and gulped as strongly as he used to, and got plenty of milk, so that's good. He did have a strong-smelling wet nappy this morning but he must have been better hydrated since because the rest have been fine. He had one poo today and that was a bit dodgy but not diarrhoea at all. Tomorrow I will offer him just toast for breakfast and see how we go. He will get a lot of breastmilk and water tomorrow too.
Arthur had a HIDEOUS poo this afternoon that unnerved me. It's an "I'm not so well" poo, but not diarrhoea as such. He last pooed like that (just the once) the day that led to the night where he started vomiting with his horrible gastroenteritis bug that went on forever. He had no other poo during that whole bug, not for 10 days, it's like his body CLEARED OUT right before he got sick. I'm not sure if that's even possible, that long before other symptoms start, so I have always wondered if it was just a coincidental BAD poo. But now, another one, right as his brother has a vomity bug. Hmmm.... He has been fine all day, but looked a bit peaky at bedtime. I have asked him how he's feeling, and he always says he feels fine, his tummy doesn't hurt, he doesn't feel sick, but he's just a little bit tired.
Neil has gone to bed (he co-sleeps with Arthur) armed with a change of nappy, sleepsuit, and bedding for Arthur, and a bowl, just in case. Urrrrgh. I am hugely relieved about Matthew because I know he's on the mend. I don't expect diarrhoea from him even, since he's already pooed and it wasn't the runs. And he's getting better really fast. But now I am dreading another night ahead, because of worrying that I'll wake to hear Arthur throwing up instead. And the time is rapidly approaching where I know I will be in the "zone" for coming down with the bug if I was exposed to it when Matthew first came down with it. I so hate the waiting game with bugs. 99% of the time, for me, the waiting results in no throwing up or illness. But the chance is always the same, each time, as far as I'm concerned. Never mind the past examples! People always point out that I never get them in the PAST when I am anxious, but that statistic doesn't mean a thing the next time round, to me!
Anyway. I know Arthur must be exposed to the bug, so I'm just hoping he'll fight it off and not really suffer with it. That's what we're praying for. I have been soaping between nursing the boys like when Arthur had his gastroenteritis, except that I only soap myself before nursing Arthur. I know it seems crazy given that there are a million other ways that he's probably been exposed to the bug, but I can't bring myself to offer him a most-definitely bug-contaminated breast to his little innocent self, when he just wants to be comforted or to settle for sleep with some nice "milky". I just won't do it. If he gets sick I won't soap anymore. It really is worth the hassle and sore breasts, to me! And it's only for a short while.
I have been googling to try and figure out how long Matthew is contagious for. Nobody can give a straight answer, it seems. I am only really finding out about the more serious stomach viruses, and those say 3 days after vomiting/diarrhoea STOP - you're still contagious all that time. Why do so many parents NOT KNOW THIS?! It should be made clear to parents when they have kids or something - part of an advice scheme that no parent misses out on. Anyway. With the norovirus (HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE bug, hope we never ever get it!), some people are contagious up to 2 WEEKS after symptoms stop. No wonder these things spread about. Urgh.
Anyway, so I would go for the 3 day thing maybe? I want to know when I can kiss those sweet cheeks again! It's torture not being able to! I'm thinking, since he started AND finished vomiting on Thursday evening, he should be free of infectiousness by Monday, right? Although, the poo today that was dodgy (though not diarrhoea).... Should I count it from that instead? I think this counts us out of going to a baby dedication at church on Sunday :( I was looking forward to it, but I will NOT be a mum who takes her kids to places before they are finished being infectious with bugs. No way.
I do still wonder about the ingesty thing. I know that it's not food poisoning as such, because I know what Matthew eats, and we eat the same, so it's not FOOD. But I just wondered about whether kids can pick up a quarter-centimetre sized crumb of goodness-knows-what, put it in their mouth, and throw up from that? That's the kind of thing that Matthew does, and what I meant when I was saying about the phrase, "Maybe it's something he ate?" I can see it if he's eating old food off the floor in enough quantities, stuff that is big enough to see that it is rotten old food (yeurgh!). But we don't have that kind of thing on the floor, just dried out crumbs of whatnot - snack bars, biscuit crumbs, I can't think what else, but definitely some of the crumbs he gets in his mouth are not either of the above, and yet still definitely a food of some sort that's really old (but still only tiny crumb-sized). Could that still make him sick? Our house is so gross.
Okay Matthew has now woken twice (10 mins apart) since I started this, so now it's late and I need to hurry and post this and go to bed. He's fine, just wanted to breastfeed the first time, and then seemed to wake unsettled the second. I don't know why. I hope he will sleep okay, though I did say to him as I put him to bed, "Now, you be sure to wake me for milky as often as you like in the night, okay?" :) If he DOES, I will probably feel like complaining as I'm soooo tired from last night's non-sleep, but I do actually want him to get his fluids back up nicely, more than I care about my sleep tonight. But I still kind of hope he will just want to sleep!
Will update again soon. Hopefully we all don't get sick this weekend. Thanks so much for the lovely messages everyone!
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