Our New Housemate

In the last week, we’ve gained a new housemate. They weren’t very welcome to begin with, taking up space and making everyone miserable, completely inconsiderate. At this point they’ve overstayed their welcome and don’t even bother taking the bins down or doing the dishes. On top of everything, the rent isn’t being paid. Gastroenteritis, you’re a ridiculously bad lodger, but for whatever reason we can’t get rid of you. 

It started, as all these things are prone to do since the advent of the child going to lovely creche, with the small man not being so well. It’s like clockwork; any bank holiday weekend or time where we’ve got plans to go somewhere, do things, visit -bam, his immune system decides to take early holiday leave and in enters the dark spirits of the creche and small children germs. I assume it would be helped if he didn’t put absolutely everything, including his new light up shoes, into his mouth constantly, but such is our lot for the moment. As it was, we were set to go to Wexford for the bank holiday weekend, I was getting trigger point injections into my back to attempt to fix the pain to make me back to normal, himself was working so we had planned to stay in my parents house where there would be minding and spoiling and not having to cook galore. Thursday, the day of the procedure came, and my Mam came down to collect us. Grand, we headed for breakfast while the little man was in creche, all was good, lovely morning wandering the shops at our leisure. When we went in to collect him, the lovely girl in charge that day informed me he’d gotten sick about ten minutes previous but it just seemed to be milk so it was okay. We’ve got a gulper; unfortunately this is not uncommon – I guess thats what happens when you try to fill a tiny stomach with a large quantity of milk in a ridiculously small amount of time. He seemed pretty okay, but since he’d had a bit of an upset tummy the night before as well, we kept watch.

I got my procedure done, all went grand, in and out in less than three hours. Then we headed to Wexford. A few miles from home, I started feeling a bit uneasy, but brushed it off, thinking it might just be a side effect of the meds, a bit of nausea. Unfortunately I found out before we even got to the front door that this was not the case. Oh the glamour. Gastro had joined us on our holidays.

The following 24 hours were what could only be described as grim. My mother was amazing – she minded us very well through the night, but me and E just weren’t well at all. I did a lot of sleeping, we emerged from the house only to go to Tesco, and purely for the reasoning that I didn’t want to be left with the sick baby on my own when I was so drained. It was not a fun experience. The age old cure of flat 7up and dry toast was foisted on us; the flat 7up much more well received by me than the boy wonder; he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth so spat it at us. By Saturday, we were deemed well enough to head to Rathwood, but overall the trip was exhausting and showed that E really wasn’t well enough yet. The weekend was spent keeping a constant eye on his hydration levels and praying it wouldn’t end up in a bank holiday A & E visit.

In the meantime, he’d also given it to his Daddy who was home alone in Cork. The grandparents didn’t escape either, Gastro stayed in their house too, as well as coming back home with us. It appears he’s a master of bilocation as well as a lousy houseguest. By Tuesday we’d had enough, while everyone else was feeling better, poor E was still off his food and unable to keep much down. Off to the doctor we went, where sure enough she told us it was our old buddy Gastro and prescribed some medication to make it go away. All was fine for 36 hours.

Gastro does however have a sense of humour. Common sense would dictate that when you bring a toddler out of the house, especially if they’ve recently been sick, you bring a spare change of clothes. It seems common sense didn’t leave the house with me this morning, as after a fun morning of play in the soft play area, E was sick all over himself and the buggy. Grand, normally its a case of whip off, wipe down, redress but today the fates were not with me. Cue a mad dash across a shopping centre which is far bigger than I’d estimated it being, toddler under arm wearing a coat, a stained vest, a nappy and socks, with a wet (but now clean) buggy being wielded in the other arm. Tesco, the home of salvation and replacement clothes for E, seemed a lot further away than it ever had before. The child has never felt heavier. The people around have never stared more, and I’ve never felt like such a bad mammy in all my life. To make matters worse, once the clothes (a very cute tracksuit bottom and t-shirt combo with a lovely vest) were purchased, the trip had to be made back to the same changing area as for some godforsaken reason, all baby changing facilities are on the one (very far away when you have a half naked child hanging out of you) end of the building. Off we headed again, heavy wriggling half naked child, drying buggy and a very frazzled Mammy. It took real effort to not go for a muffin and coffee afterwards as a reward for surviving. Never again will I forget the clothes!

Alls well that ends well. He’s now asleep on the sofa, looking cute, snoring quietly. He’s happy to take the medication, which is a relief after the horrible drama that was Augmentin-Gate (he’s not eaten properly since, he doesn’t trust me with food). It seems to make him a little drowsy, so I live in hope that sleep is a healer and that the angry, miserable unwell child who doesn’t care for bunking with Gastro will disappear and leave behind my happy life loving boy once more.

Gastro, pack your bags. Your days are numbered.