One Stomach Flu Away From My Goal Weight

I'm just going to warn you now, I'm going to complain in this post and I'm going to do it without any attempt to look on the bright side because as far as I can tell, there was absolutely no bright side to my day yesterday.

I woke up 7 a.m. when Clairebear started crying up in her room. She's been a little off the past few days. Still super happy the majority of the time, but her happiness is punctuated with short bursts of crying and spitting up (and throwing up, but just that one time). As soon as I sat up in bed, I knew I didn't feel well, but I've been working so late each night that JP has been getting up with the kids every morning and I didn't think he'd be very sympathetic to a request for another morning of sleeping in. Thirty minutes later, my stomach was clenched up and hurting, my body ached, and I had a splitting headache. I crawled back in bed, moaning my apologies, and he got up (I'm pretty sure he was glaring at me, but I felt too terrible to notice or care very much).

Because I haven't been really sick in years, I was confident that these yucky feelings would go away quickly, so I told him not to cancel his morning swim lesson. Oh, I'll be fine, I said, it's only an hour. But very much no. Within 10 minutes of him leaving, I was in the bathroom throwing up over and over again with Landon standing behind me keeping up a steady stream of one-sided conversation, "Mommy, why are you trying to go potty backwards? Mommy why are you sitting on the floor? Mommy, can I have a yogurt? I really want a yogurt. Can I have milk? Mommy, why are you laying on the ground?" Then Claire started crying from the living room and I couldn't stand up without falling back down and Landon started to get mad that he couldn't have a yogurt (and every time he said the word yogurt it made me heave again, though I had nothing left in my stomach to give up). It was really quite awful. I tried calling JP even though I knew his cell phone would be in his swim bag on a bench far away from where he was coaching, so I just counted down the minutes, all 60 of them until he was coming home. Claire cried a lot, Landon cried a lot, and I lay on the tile floor crying a bit myself. He found me, 65 minutes later (yes, he was 5 minutes late and they were the longest 5 minutes of all the minutes combined), still on the bathroom floor. My whole body hurt and every time I tried to sit up the room would go black and I'd have to lay down again. It was so very bad.

Then, because I still hadn't learned anything about how this day was going to go, I told JP to go ahead and take Landon to his toddler friend's birthday party. Claire had just gone down for her nap and she always sleeps for at least 3 hours, so we'll be fine!, I said. I'll sleep, she'll sleep, you'll be home in 2 hours.

Claire woke up 40 minutes after he left. I carried a bottle upstairs, since there was no way I was going to risk carrying her down the stairs, and fed her through the bars of her crib. I was afraid I'd drop her if I tried to pick her up. I soon realized I'd left my cell phone downstairs, so I couldn't call JP to come home early, but in that moment, going back down and then up the stairs seemed harder than just sticking it out for another hour and a half. Probably the wrong decision, but I really didn't think I could walk that far.

The rest of the day involved me moaning, trying to eat 3 sips of chicken soup, throwing up several more times, blacking out twice, and spiking 102 fevers ever hour or so, between otherwise normal temperatures. Even small sips of water all came back up. I don't get sick often- in fact, I've only thrown up once in my life for non-alcohol-related reasons, and that was when I had the flu in 7th grade. I didn't know the warning signs so I ended up throwing up bright red spaghetti sauce all over my mom's new cream living room carpet. I figured out what was happening a little quicker this time, so at least I didn't make a mess. My body hurt all over and if I ever moved faster than a snail, my limbs would go numb and my vision would black out.

Landon of course picked yesterday to be the kind of toddler that he NEVER is- throwing multiple tantrums, refusing to do what we asked him, saying "No" to things- there were several times I just looked at him like "who are you?!" He spent a lot of time in his room. Claire was needy and never slept for more than 45 minutes at a time, though she kept her food down just fine and was usually in a pretty good mood when awake. JP didn't feel well himself; just a scratchy throat, but he was feeling quite sorry for himself (and, in my opinion, not nearly sympathetic enough to me) since I laid on the couch all day while he did everything around me. We had to cancel our plans to go to San Antonio to celebrate my grandpa's 81st birthday, which made me so sad, and I had to back out of a baby shower I was hosting today for a close friend.

All in all it just sucked. At 7 p.m. I gave up on attempting to eat or drink anything and took 4 ibuprofen (my body ached so much, it was like all my bones were hollowed out and filled with pain) and 2 prescription sleeping pills, and went to bed. I woke up at 6 this morning, feeling cautiously better. I just ate half a bagel and so far, so good. I really hope today is a better day.

P.S. Unrelated, but I can't have a post so entirely depressing. So behold the Biscuit in happier times: