That Was Close

Thought it might be easier just to type this up! My 100 Days of Goth Bands series got rudely interrupted, as well as YouTube uploads, and pretty much everything actually for the best part of three weeks. Why? Well the plague came to town, and a medical emergency resulted. 

Gastroenteritis has been doing the rounds locally at schools and daycare centres, ploughing through children, teachers, and parents alike. Super contagious. Both my children got it - twice. Then I got it - and shit got pretty real pretty quickly. 

Any time a child vomits or has diarrhoea at the early childhood education centre we send them to, their policy is that the child must spend the next 48 hours at home. Fair enough. Trouble is Mr Owl cannot take any time off work, so the task of picking up and caring for yon sick child falls upon me. I lost count how many times either child was sent home with this gastro bug, but my word I’ve never cleaned up so much vomit in all my life.

Severine also has multitudinous regular appointments, I literally can’t remember the last time I had a full week’s work. There are always appointments to go to. In the last couple of weeks alone she’s had a kidney ultrasound, eye appointment, eczema specialist, anaesthetist consultation, paediatrician, plus her regular ongoing physio, speech, and occupational therapy visits. I’ve also had midwife visits, a few extra blood tests and such, and trips to a lawyer. It’s been a bit full on.

Anyway, last weekend, as was inevitable, I got the gastroenteritis. Not a big deal I thought, seems to clear up after 24 hours; get rest, fluids, blah. But for me it got really bad really quickly. Being pregnant possibly had something to do with this.

After Montrose spewed all over the couch first thing after breakfast, I cleaned everything up, and he was snoozing on my chest when I thought, gosh I don’t feel well. Had a huge vomiting session myself, then felt alright. Over the next few hours I had a couple more spewing sessions, eventually lying down in bed next to a bucket. I had nothing to throw up except bile the whole time. I got up to vomit again, and as I could sense the other symptom of gastro about to inflict itself upon me, I headed to the bathroom. 

I realised immediately that something was wrong. Very wrong. Everything looked skewed and far away, I could hardly walk. I was very dizzy and confused. I sat in the bathroom in a sudden overwhelming fever, trying not to pass out. Mr Owl was upstairs and wouldn’t be able to hear me cry out, so I tried to call him on my phone. I couldn’t remember how to make a phone call. I sent him a message which he thankfully saw right away, ‘Call 111’. 

An ambulance came, and from what Mr Owl told me later, I don’t think the paramedic took me seriously, thinking I was being dramatic or overreacting to feeling ill. I could hardly string a sentence together or walk across the room. He asked if I wanted to stay home or come to hospital. Turns out if I had stayed home, I could have suffered organ damage, brain damage, sepsis, and/or early labour.

I was so severely dehydrated that I was confused, faint, my blood pressure was low, my fingers were blue, and I was freezing cold. Seems this was the first stages of hypovolemic shock or similar. I didn’t realise til later that this had actually been pretty serious and a life-threatening emergency. 

The baby in my tummy, only 29 weeks, had tachycardia from the distress. It gets better - shortly after arriving at the hospital, I start getting labour contractions. Eventually they were two minutes apart - the stage at which most pregnant women would rush off to the delivery suite. So I was isolated in a delivery suite overnight, given four bags of IV fluids, and told about the complications of having an extremely premature baby. All a bit scary, not a good time.

By morning I was feeling better, still confused, blood pressure alarmingly low, but mercifully the contractions were petering off, though they had woken me up dozens of times in the night. Then for no reason half my face decides to go numb and tingly. After making sure I wasn’t having a stroke or something, I stayed in hospital, isolated, feeling anxious and emotional, until both the doctors and I decided it was safe to go home. 

I was told to rest for a few days, hah. Lo, the next day, Montrose is sent home again. The day after that, Severine gets sent home. I was absolutely knackered and fatigued for the next week, and my brain took a few days to restore itself from the confusion caused by lack of blood flow and oxygen.

It’s been pretty horrible. Obviously I’ve got no work done. It’s been three solid weeks of sickness and appointments. Thankfully in the end, I am ok, the baby is ok, and both children seem to finally be clear of the bug. The baby is bouncing around in my tummy as I type this. So I apologise for the interruption to uploads. It can be challenging these days to maintain consistency with posting online, one can only do the best one can do. Working on catching up now, and hoping that life remains drama-free. On the bright side, it’s finally Spring here, and the cherry blossoms and daffodils everywhere are cheering to the soul. See you again soon! x

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