Thursday, December 29, 2011

A Winter Sunset in the West

The evening is uneventful until he suddenly starts complaining that he's freezing and his stomach hurts. Within minutes, he's curled up on me, shaking, groaning, while Jevo covers him with a thick blanket. He moans and trembles until he becomes listless, only to start up again. I hold him, try to saying soothing things, and with my free hand, I grab my phone, hit the WebMD app and try to figure out what the hell is wrong with my child.

He goes from asking how many books we'll read in bed to telling me he doesn't want to read at all to asking to go to bed (which has happened exactly once before, no joke), where he immediately tries to fall asleep even as he continues shaking. His temperature is 102.2, mid-grade, and I ask him if anything hurts now, or if he needs to poop or vomit. He tells me know, just that he can't stop shaking, and is so compliant and vulnerable that my heart can't help aching for him.

It'll get worse, with the trembling continuing for more than hour, an hour capped with his vomiting all over his bed. This is the first time - ever - that he vomits (not counting regularly spitting up the first four months), and he is so confused that he asks me what's going on and why he did that. I take him to the bathroom and help him clean up, then return to his room to clean up. He curls up on his beanbag and passes out. A short while later I return him to his bed, where he promptly falls asleep, still trembling a bit. Before sitting to write these words, I checked his temperature (up a tiny bit) and gave him another dose of medicine, praying he doesn't puke it up.

I'm so unused to Max being sick that when he is, I am capable only of imaging every worst-case scenario possible. I am outwardly calm and methodical, administering medicine, kisses and hugs, checking temperatures, rubbing whatever aches, but inside, I'm fighting to quell the panic, and looping in my head, over and over and over again, is "please don't let him die, please don't let him die."

I am lucky that Max's illnesses have always been the same, ear and/or throat infections, with all the accompanying symptoms. His first two years were marked with semi-frequent upper respiratory tract infections and croup (which he still gets at least once a year), but since he's about three-and-a-half, he's been truly sick once, at most twice, a year. I am lucky, he is lucky (and I credit in large part all that breastfeeding I did for this fortune).

But it is precisely because he's so infrequently sick that a night like tonight always freaks me out - I'm not used to these symptoms, not used to my child being so out of sorts. In the face of symptoms I have no experience with, even though I know they're normal under the circumstances and that he has no truly, extremely alarming symptoms that require a mad dash to the ER, I worry that he might be dying, and not only can I not really tell, I also can't do a thing about it. Ear and throat infections are crappy and bring discomfort and fever, but they never affect his personality. He's still active and chatty and resistant to sleep and other responsibilities. To have him shaking so crazily, complaining of a stomach ache (and earlier in the day he went to the bathroom a lot and had a headache), and to have him feeling so terrible he can't finish an episode of SpongeBob (and I'm telling you, this says a lot about how awful he felt) and is begging for bed, is like having someone else's kid. He is completely foreign to me, and I am beside myself with fear.

And so, I worry. I imagine the worst then beg the universe to not let this be it for my child. I leave him to rest only to hover over him 10 minutes later, checking to make sure he's breathing and not in any distress. I leave him, then return. I touch him, check his temperature, kiss him. Lather, rinse, repeat. There will be no sleep for me tonight, though I will do whatever I can to keep his fever down and the shakes abated, to somehow foresee vomit and diarrhea, should there be any, and get him right to the bathroom. I will conjure whatever magic I can to help him sleep.

Come morning, I hope my child is himself again. I hope he is his usual exhausting self and that I may get at least a nap in before he runs me into the ground.

Labels: , ,



Posted by Tere @ 12/29/2011   | |

3 Comments

  • Blogger Tammy posted at 1/02/2012 10:52 PM  
    I hope your son is feeling better. I totally understand where you are coming from. I worry and feel like crying with my children when they are sick.... That's what us Moms do.

    I do hope he is feeling better and it was just a bug.

    Sincerely,
    Tammy

  • Blogger Tere posted at 1/09/2012 10:34 AM  
    Thanks, Tammy. Looks like it was a short-lasting bug - he was back to himself by the following afternoon.

  • Anonymous Promotional pens posted at 1/24/2012 11:04 AM  
    Hope he's feeling better. It is rough, when they are sick!

    • Post a Comment

    « Home

    Create a Link