When a "rough day" turns into a rough two weeks...

Being sick for going on two weeks landed Benji in hot water. Actually water with dextrose and saline. He had some tests to rule out some really scary possibilities which is a huge relief. Getting IV fluids for a few hours really helped him feel a lot better--at least for now. Hoping that the worst is now past and he's on the road to wellness. -Monica

UPDATE: I am such an optimist. This illness will go down in history in our family. We traveled to SC to the boys' grandmother's house and he got even sicker. Benji ended up in the ER there because of bad stomach pain to go along with his long term illness. Turns out he also has an ear infection. Thanksgiving Day itself resulted in yet another call to the advice nurse. Glad that November has now come and gone. 

"I'm having a rough day" (which resulted in a rough night)

Actually sleeping at home while the sun is still up? Definitely sick.

So last night before going to bed Benji seemed particularly sluggish and in fact begged off eating supper and went to the couch while the rest of us ate. I was pretty shocked when he fell asleep, but that was my first clue that he was indeed, in his own words "having a rough day".

We carried him up and after using the bathroom he quietly crawled into bed. Clue number two.

My prediction that he might really be sick came true at about 1:00 am when he at least had time to yell out "I think I'm going to gawk!" (A favorite word for barf around here.) And gawk he did, poor, poor guy. But at least he make it to the toilet to do so.

I made a little makeshift bed for him on our floor and laid down with him. He was very good about using the bowl when he needed to but it was pretty hard for me to get much rest after this trying to be alert to the coughing that would precede the next round.

And of course all this commotion woke up Danny so that was also a bit complicated trying to get him to settle back down to sleep in his own bed.

We kept Benji home from school today and the good news was that the "gawking" stopped in the morning (I am pretty sure that's the end of it but who knows?). The bad news was though that then he started having some trouble on his other end. I will spare you the details, but let's just say, there is a load of clothes in the washer right now with super hot water and super strong disinfectants.

We figure it's just a stomach bug and will pass, but it's so odd seeing Benji with so little energy. This is the kid who has not napped at home here since 2012 or something like that. All day today he was pretty lethargic, but wouldn't dream of napping until about 10 minutes ago. He was talking to me about something and I looked over and he was out for the count.

Hopefully he will be feeling much better after having some supper in a few hours and a full night's sleep. Finger's crossed! -Monica

P.S. Laying bets on who will be next. I'm betting his brother. Oh joy.

UPDATE: So, how silly of me to think that this was a 24 hour bug. Benji proceeded to gawk in the night on Wed., Sat., Mon. and Tues. And continued with the diarrhea. After speaking with the doc, we did get him in to see her just to rule out other possibilities like a head injury or even a central nervous system prob, but after examining him, her thought is that the poor guy had more than one viral infection at the same time. Danny also got sick one night in the middle of all of this which was actually reassuring to the doc as that pointed to a viral bug. As Benji's nose seemed to run a lot after his episodes, she also thought he might be having some post nasal drip causing him to gag so last night we propped his pillow more than usual and ran a moist air humidifier. He slept beautiful all night. Halleluia! One thing I'll say for Benji though, after that first day of being wiped out, the rest of this illness he has had a lot of energy. Now I'm recovering from all he energy spent with him during his illness. Yawn. But so grateful he is okay!!!!