Typhoid Magda

What a Father's Day weekend... It started on Friday while walking the dogs. Magda was, according to Jfer, "really tired" -- which is generally a good thing, since it means an early and fast bed time.

But when Magda got out of her stroller to walk Homer, she took a couple of steps and, to everyone's great surprise, promptly tossed her cookies all over the sidewalk. And thus began her first encounter with a stomach flu. She proceded to barf on a semi regular basis through Sunday morning; spending most of Saturday sleeping or being lethargic and generally looking pitiful. She couldn't keep any thing down, including any liquids and by the time Sunday rolled around she'd lost 1.5 lbs in weight and her cute toddler belly was all gone. It's really sad when your kids asks for water and you try to explain to her that she really can't have any, since it would just come out; and trying to barf on an empty stomach is even less fun.

I Googled the symptoms and all the places said that gastroenteritis is fairly common in children, that there isn't much of anything to do about it except to keep 'em hydrated (tough to do if they just chunk it up and in general can't stand Pedialyte) and to contact your doctor if they haven't stopped barfing after three days or if they show signs of dehydration. Three days?!? They want you to wait three days, watching your kid suffer? As it turned out, by noon Sunday Magda's stomach had settled down and she had regained some of her appetite. And amazingly, by that night she was almost back to her own self.

Of course, by that time Jfer started to feel bad. Being barfed on made it probably pretty easy for her to get infected. On Sunday night, she was feeling miserable and spending extended and productive time in the bathroom... That night I did my best to not have her get up when Magda woke up a couple of times wanting to nurse. Luckily Jfer's bout lasted much shorter and next morning, she started to feel better so that I could leave them.

Needless to say, I was starting to feel a bit unsure about my #2. I decided it wasn't that bad and went to work, but then headed home before noon as things weren't improving. I ended up sleeping most of the day and my temp made it above 100F, but unlike my girls, I managed to not spew chunks.

So that was my wonderful Father's Day weekend. It didn't help things that I had just finished reading The Great Influenza right about the time we all got sick.