Sick of Ada Being Sick

Ada's asthma thing, or whatever it is, isn't quite better yet. She was on medicine and that helped a ton. Then the medicine was done and she was okay for a couple of days. Then the coughing came back. Then, two nights ago the throwing up came back. It was like she had stored up all of the throwing up she hadn't done in the previous week and let it all out in one night. It started at 11:30pm and just kept going. I gave up around 1 am and poor Rick stayed on the couch sleeping/watching movies with her until who knows when. It sucked. Then he stayed home with her so they could both get some much needed rest.

From this most recent episode, I'll say "You haven't experienced parenthood until..."

clearly, there are many ways to finish off this line. To which I'll add:

...you've been thrown up on four times within two hours.
...you've had regurgitated banana drip down your cleavage, twice in one night.
...you've run out of towels in the linen closet from all of the showers you, your husband and your child have used to wash off remnants of vomit.
...you want to change places with your sick child so they don't have to suffer anymore because they just don't understand what's going on with their little body.

Yesterday, Rick took Ada back to the Doctor, but it wasn't her regular Doctoress so it was a wasted visit in my opinion since the new Doctor said we'd have to wait until her regular Doctoress came in today to do anything more. Gee buddy, thanks for nothing.

On the way home from the Doctor's office, Rick picked me up from work and Ada proceeded to throw up all over the back seat of the car just a few blocks from my office. We pulled over and cleaned her up--or Rick cleaned her and the car up while I called the Doctoress' office to demand that they leave our normal Doctoress an urgent message to contact me ASAP. Then I got out and cuddled with Ada's half-nakedness on the sidewalk until Rick was ready to put her back into the pukey car seat.

We almost made it home without further incident but... with three blocks left, she had to let the juice flow. Talk about an easy way to make a distracted driver. Poor Rick was ready to plow through anyone to get around the block and park at that point. Ada's screaming. The car reeks. Traffic isn't letting us through fast enough. It's times like these that I want a button in the car that makes it glow or flash hot pink to indicate to other motorists something like "Move please, I have a really good reason to have the right of way right now. Trust me. Thank you." If only the hazard flashers had that setting...

We were able to park in a temporary unloading spot out front while Rick carried Ada into the house while holding his breath, holding her at arms' length, listening to her scream and trying to comfort her all at once. Straight into the house and down the hall to the tub. He tagged out at that point and I tagged in --just like tag team wrestling, only it's a two-year old we're up against, and there is only one of her. He got to clean the car, bring the car seat in for a major scrub down, and find more permanent parking. I got to give Ada a bath and clean her up. Knowing that I got the better end of the deal, I let him have the honor of drying her off --it really is the best part of the bath as we've made quite the game of it. She runs naked, he catches her, dries and cuddles her, she squeals with delight. It almost makes up for having to clean up her puke. Almost.

Thankfully, the rest of the night proved to be uneventful which was a plesant surprise as I've been expecting, and dreading, the worst. We gave her some Singular and puffs from her inhaler. She coughed before bed, but we haven't heard a peep since. Now if only I could have caught up on some sleep this morning instead of getting up to write at 4 am. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow. Yawn.

Moral of the story: Keep a change of clothes (for your child, and maybe yourself), diapers, wipes, and a towel or two in the car for unexpected incidents. You never know when they'll come in handy, but odds are good you'll need them.