Life on hold

A plague hit Larsonland this week. And I'm not trying to be dramatic, well, ok yes, I'm being dramatic. But sicknesses abounded and life came to a complete halt.

Tuesday night, after coming home from Bible Study, I felt a strong rumble in my stomach and knew something wasn't right. About 3 minutes later, my fears were confirmed. And from about 9pm-5am, I essentially lived in the bathroom. Not pretty, folks.

That same morning, about the time I was finally getting into bed, Matt and I both heard his stomach rumble and immediately braced ourselves hoping it was nothing. But of course, we knew what it was. And thus, the bathroom had a newly acquired resident for the morning.

All of Wednesday we could barely move, making frequent trips to the bathroom and curling up on the couch or floor.

Oh wait, and we also had a little boy running around that we were apparently supposed to be watching. He had actually thrown up in his crib the night before but generally seemed in good spirits aside from not wanting to really eat or drink. We tried our best to "play" with him and keep him occupied, but realistically we just did what we could do to keep him fed and alive. And though he survived the day with his half-dead parents, he had his own wild ride ahead!

fine dad, I'll read by myself

Thursday morning as I was just starting to feel better, Benjamin started to act completely off. He was fussing and crying and asking to be held every other minute. If you know the little guy, you know this is very unlike him. As the day went on, he started getting warmer and warmer, and his mood only kept deteriorating. Well, needless to say, our little man was sick and it was a sad sight to behold. That night was just awful, the poor thing was burning up and screaming about every 30 minutes. Aside from Tylenol and hugs, we didn't know how to make it go away.

We seemed to make it through Friday and most of Saturday by trying to force fluids down him, holding him almost nonstop, and letting him do just about whatever he wanted. His fever was high and we could tell he was in pain, so that little man could have anything!

By Saturday evening, the fever got worse again (103.3) and had been going on for nearly 3 days, so our on-call pediatrician said we should take him in. Instead of paying $150 to go to the Children's Hospital a few blocks away, we drove all the way to Westminster and visited their urgent care center (Children's Hospital, these are brilliant. Make more!) The wait was a little long, but thankfully Benjamin didn't seem to mind. We left with a diagnosis and a much better peace of mind! (Herpangina Virus and double ear infection on top of probable stomach virus that was coming to an end) Apparently the virus gave him ulcers in his throat (hence the barely eating and drinking) along with the high fever, and it looked like the ear infections were pretty bad, so he was in quite a bit of pain overall. Poor kiddo!!

keeping busy in the waiting room

I let BW sleep in bed with me last night while Matt tried to get some z's on the couch. It had been a long week!! Thankfully the fever has subsided and things finally seem on the up and up. We have been so grateful for quite a healthy baby (only a couple colds during his entire first year, oh, and the "twisted" testicle debacle), so we certainly won't complain about this one bit. But it is quite a sad sight to see your little one in so much pain with nothing you can do!! {I did really really love all the cuddles though!}

So that's our update for now. Hopefully life without sickness will resume shortly! Mimi was able to extend her layover today in Denver, so she'll be able to come watch him while we work tomorrow.  Such a wonderful grandmother!! :)