Gastroenteritis

-Did you know that the stomach bug is not and should not be called the flu? It is not associated with Influenza and should really be called the stomach bug or if you want to sound smart, call it gastroenteritis! 

- Did you know in 1980, gastroenteritis from all causes caused 4.6 million deaths in children, with the majority occurring in the developing world. Death rates were reduced significantly (to approximately 1.5 million deaths annually) by the year 2000, largely due to the introduction and widespread use of oral rehydration therapy. 

And this is exactly what we had....   I thought at first that maybe it was food poisoning, but no!! Ezra 1st, Jason 2nd, Isaiah 3rd, Brittney 4th, and Maci 5th.  Ezra & Maci threw up once and were done. Isaiah, Jason, and myself were hit waaay harder!! Jason and I were wiped out from it and had it around the same time. Jason laid on one couch, I laid on the other, and we just laid there and stared at each other when we were awake. I don't think we've spent that much time together since the kids were born.  I wasn't sure how we were going to make it since we were both out of commission. But we somehow figured it out. It was also an expensive week for us.... the kids eating hot lunch everyday, our trips to walgreens (gatorade at $2 a pop, many bottles of pedialyte, saltines, and the many bottles of Diet Gingerale), the nights of being so weak that we had to order pizza for the well ones, Jason missing work, the price of disinfectants products at Walgreens is crazy, disposable cups & plates & silverware, the loads of laundry, the cleaning products.... whew! 

In the beginning of this, I was pretty worried about the baby. I've been dehydrated before, but wasn't sure how I could even get to the hospital to get an IV if I needed one. I paid special attention to my body and the baby's movement.... making sure everything was ok. I did become pretty dehydrated and still am, but hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be all good. If not, I'll just go get the IV. But who has time for that when you have 5 kids to take care of? 

I hit one low point during the whole thing.... yesterday, Wednesday. I wasn't throwing up, but I was wiped out and could barely walk.  I didn't care about the house being a mess, but we were running out of clean dishes. And the kitchen was disgusting, so I wouldn't let the kids cook anything. We had no food in the house because I always go shopping on the 1st, but couldn't because that's when this had all started. The kids were hungry and searching for food to eat. Jason was trying to sleep so he could attempt to go back to work that night. It was 7pm, way past dinnertime and I really didn't want to spend $25 on pizza again for the well kids. So I was going to go to Walgreens to find something frozen to throw into the microwave. I looked disgusting and awful, I told the kids I would be right back, I went outside just barely walking to the car and I went to go get into the car and couldn't.  I grabbed the steering wheel and tried and tried to pull myself up, for about 5 mins. I just couldn't do it. Now if you know me, things like this just don't happen. I don't allow them to happen and WILL figure out a way to make things work. But I absolutely couldn't. I was standing there in my driveway, just bawling. Mad at having to spend so much money on stupid pizza, mad that I wasn't strong enough to get into my car, mad that I stunk like throw up but felt too weak to get in the shower, mad that I couldn't take care of my children or myself, & mad that I was having an absolute breakdown in my driveway, but couldn't help myself! I finally gained my composure and came back in and ordered pizza for the kids. It was not one of my greatest moments, but we all have them, right?!

This hasn't been the worst case of the stomach bug we've ever had. But I think just mentally and emotionally I wasn't prepared for it. I'm about to have this baby and my life is absolute chaos right now.  I am so thankful that it hit us when it did though. I'd rather have it happen now than after the baby is here. And I really needed to get hit upside the head by something like this to make me appreciate the small and simple thing in life. Ya, sounds weird huh? But lately, I've been so ornery and moody and whiny about little things. I mean, ya, it's normal to whine about being pregnant and sore all the time and having sciatic problems. But I was whining about having to clean the house all the time and doing laundry and all that fun stuff we do as women. But when I wasn't able to really do those things because I was sick, I wanted too. I wanted to clear off the counter, I wanted to do the dishes, I wanted to work on laundry. Weird huh? Now I really appreciate being able to do these things, and haven't whined about it in a whole 24 hours!

Anyway, I know this is a long post about nothing. But I realized that I'm not blogging things like this for anyone but myself and my family in the future. I really want to start blogging more. More about the highs & lows and realities of life. More about the things we go through and experience as a family. And the lessons that are learned from life. We'll see if this happens though. Finger's cross though that we are done with this stomach bug! We will find out tonight if that's the case! Then, we can finally prepare and get excited for General Conference this weekend! YAY!!!