Part Five: Our First Day at Home
As I mentioned before, big brother was sick. Turns out it was Rotovirus…super contagious. Awesome. So, we spent the first few hours disinfecting everything and trying to explain to a 20-month-old that he couldn’t go near his brand new baby sister. It was pure torture.
Thankfully, my mother had traveled from Pittsburgh to help us for the first few days…considering we now had two kids under two and I just had my abdomen sewn together. It was October, aka prime hunting season, and my husband, despite me just having a child, was “dying” with the need to be in the woods. Despite his better judgment, he went hunting. Trust me, I was NOT a happy camper and he knew (knows) it.
All was going pretty well though. I was sore, but managing it, quite well if I do say so myself. My son was so happy to see me, so interested in his little sister, and I so desperately wanted to just snuggle him and play like we used to. But it was near impossible with the incision. (It took weeks before I wasn’t scared and didn’t cringe and brace myself for instant pain every time my toddler came running up to me slamming head first into me or when he would climb onto my lap. )
But thankfully, after a rough hospital stay, and that fact my husband bailed to go hunting, my husband offered to watch the baby for the first night so I could actually get rest in our big comfy bed. Our bed. It was glorious. So big. So comfy. My two dogs taking watch over me.
Until it wasn’t.
I woke up to the sound of vomiting. Heart pounding out of my chest and with pure adrenaline coursing through my veins, I leapt out of bed and nearly screamed like a dying animal due to the pain. Blurry eyed from pain, I grabbed for the baby monitored. My son was sound asleep. I looked out my bedroom. It was quiet. Did I dream it?
Just as I as about to open my son’s bedroom door to stick my nose in…(in case he vomited and managed to keep sleeping) i heard the vomiting again coming from the bathroom at the other end of our hallway.
I slowly walked down the hallway. Heart pounding. What is happening? Am I dreaming? If this is my husband, I am so so screwed. Well, it wasn’t my husband.
It was my mom…rotovirus’ newest victim. I scooted down the stairs and broke the news to my husband who was asleep with the baby. Despite just having surgery, I went into hyper mom/nurse mode and brought my mom all the “I-am-vomiting- please-help-me essentials.” Like any good mom, she yelled at me to get the hell out so I didn’t get sick…you know because vomiting with an incision would not be ideal…because the last thing I needed was to blow a stitch.
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well. Hard to sleep to the sound of vomiting down the hall. My mom was still so sick the following morning that my husband had to go out and get her some medicine. We also called our family friend who happens to be a doctor and he had to drive over an hour to our house to take her home.
We had to disinfect everything and pray that no one else, especially the baby and me, got the virus. After all that disinfecting and cleaning, it took me over two days to recover from overdoing it. No wonder the doctors tell you to take it easy post-surgery.
But by the grace of God and several cans of Lysol, ten loads of laundry, and a jug of antibacterial soap later….no one else got sick.
Life of A Mama: Unfiltered 