the adventures of our night...

DAY 15:  Snuggling so cute on the couch

Not last night but the night before, I woke up to TS in our bathroom making lots of noise.  He was very upset.  I was very confused.  I had a couple flashes of memory of him crying next to my bed and then crying on my bed.  I think he must have been trying to tell me something, but he didn't try long enough to wake me up enough because I fell right back to sleep.

But there he was, in our bathroom, screaming and crying.  I had Ella sleeping in my arms, so I nudged Tyler and asked him if he could make sure TS was okay.  He went and came back and both were back to bed.  I had no idea what happened, but I fell back to sleep too.

I kept waking up to something that was different, something that my brain was telling me I should notice.  I was exhausted, though, and sleeping heavier than I think I usually do.  Finally I woke up enough to realize I was smelling something new.  It was sweet and very strong.  I finally asked Tyler if he could smell it too and what it was.

Tyler told me that TS had thrown up.  That made sense why he had been crying.  I woke up a lot more and wanted to check on him to make sure he was okay.  I laid Ella down on our middle pillow, trying to keep her asleep.  As we moved her, my hand got wet, then my elbow got wet.  I felt on her, and most of her backside was all wet.  Since I knew TS had puked, and I remembered he had been by our bed, I thought, oh my gosh, did he puke on the baby? And I searched around on the bed near where Ella had been, and found a large area of puke.  Yep, he had puked on the baby!

Then suddenly it hit me for some reason.  I burst out laughing and laughing.  I couldn't believe TS had thrown up on Ella.  I mean, who does that?!  Who walks over, from a completely different location, and pukes on their baby sister while she's sleeping?  haha...

I got up and changed my top because it had vomit on it.  Tyler and I were trying to figure out what all had happened and how to clean it all up while keeping everyone asleep.  We kept discovering puke in new places.

Turns out TS had thrown up on his pajamas prior to puking in the bathroom.  He had changed his pajamas, though, without waking us.  Then he must have come in, feeling like he was going to throw up, and threw up on our bed/Ella (haha), then went in and threw up in our bathroom and on his new pajamas.  We also found a trail of puke on our floor, but we're not sure if that was from it falling off the comforter when I pulled it off our bed or if that was from TS running to the bathroom.

It was all so confusing.  I felt like we were detectives, searching the clues to figure out exactly what happened.  Exactly how many times and places the boy had puked before he woke us up.  Turns out he had thrown up three times prior to waking us up.

We got the bedding off, except for the fitted sheet and bottom waterproof protector.  Miraculously Ella slept through it all, but of course, any other night, if I had to get up to pee, she would have woken up the moment the idea entered my mind.  But this night, she slept like a log (though, I've never seen any sleeping logs).  Tyler used our spot cleaner (like a super mini carpet cleaner) to clean up the vomit on the floor.

When he was done, I watched him while he quickly cleaned up the spot cleaner machine.  While doing so, he accidentally dumped the dirty water (aka puke) on the bathroom floor, including his feet and pj bottoms.  He screamed really loud in a surprisingly manly way.  I turned my head away and prayed for peace and self control, but I lost it, and I burst out laughing hysterically.  I could not believe he had just poured the puke all over himself.  We already had a ridiculous amount of puke to clean up, and then this happened.  Each time I looked at him, I laughed harder.  It got even funnier when he muttered, "Great, these are my last pair of pajama bottoms."  (Should I tell you why he doesn't have any other pajama bottoms?  It would be because of a special super power that I have.  I wore his pj bottoms when I was prego, and somehow I magically created big holes through out them all, except one.  He never wore them at the time...but clearly I need to buy him some new ones.)  I offered him mine because they were guy ones, and I had some girl ones I could put on.  He declined.

So, now he's standing there with no slippers or socks on, and NO PANTS.  I couldn't stop laughing.

It was one of those things where you witness how a person is changed due to parenthood.  Like at dinner that same night, Tyler had just gotten himself a napkin.  He folded it in half nicely, like he always does, and placed it by his plate.  Then about ten seconds later, Violet spilled her water right onto his napkin, totally soaking it.  Because it happened to Tyler, and because of his personality which is very organized, clean, particular about things, (wish I knew how to explain it better), it made me laugh so hard.  When those things happen to me, it seems more fitting/normal, I guess.  But when it happens to Tyler, it cracks me up because I know it makes his eye twitch.

This was a similar thing with the pants.

So, we finished cleaning up.  Tyler started off wearing pants and ended up wearing no pants.  But the puke was cleaned up.

Sleeping didn't go so well for me after that.  Every 15 minutes, like clockwork, TS was puking.

By mid-morning, he had thrown up 20 times.  I don't know why I kept count, but I did.

This was soon after he got up.

The day continued about like that, only his puking lessened to about every 45 minutes to 3 hours.  In total, he threw up 26 times, all together.

He slept a lot of yesterday.  Luckily he consumed water by the bottle full.  He kept very hydrated.  Since he wasn't eating anything else, we tried chicken broth and some drinks with electrolytes in it, as well as some juice.  He couldn't tolerate much of any of it, except we did get him to drink a think with the electrolytes.

Meanwhile, I noticed Violet was feeling a lot worse.  I'd noticed on Monday that her ear was hurting her.  I kept an eye on her to see if it continued hurting her or if she was making it up (not that she tries to lie, but sometimes it's hard to tell when things are real or not).  By the end of yesterday, her mood had changed significantly, I was convinced she was truly not feeling well.  Tyler took her to urgent care, and she does indeed have an ear infection.  I think it's the first time Violet has ever had antibiotics.

And...yesterday, Emma had blood work to check her blood counts.  I was too exhausted to drive to the dr's office due to lack of sleep.  There was no way I could bring all the kids like I had planned.  So, I asked my sister if there was anyway she could do it for me.  It's the first time we've needed to borrow her like this, and luckily, she was able to.  I have a hard time trusting others when it comes to Emma and medical things she goes through.  I feel like she needs the right kind of emotional connection and security from whoever is with her, and my sister is someone I totally trust with that.  So, while it was hard to not be with her, it was nice to know she was in good hands.

Counts are pretty good for her, especially compared to last time:

Her ANC is still higher than it's been in about three years.  I think the shot must have done something longer than they expected it to do.  I hope it stays up high.  They want to recheck in about a month.

I got Emma's biopsy results.  Cellularity is around 15%, but apparently it was a hard sample to determine it from because it was so spread out and empty.  Everything else looks good.  No cancer or chromosome changes, so yay!

And, lastly, here is TS this morning, after 26 pukes.  He was really nauseous right here, and he thought he was going to throw up again, but he didn't.  He has since improved more, and is actually awake and wants to play...maybe even eat.  I think I should go make him some chicken noodle soup.

I included the kitchen in the background to show how the kitchen is faring with such a sick boy.  (It is now almost clean, yay!)

DAY 17

One day I'll go back to color photos, but for the most part, I seem to really like black and white and want to learn how to do them well...so I'm doing lots of them!