Stomach Flu

This was easily one of the worst weekends in my life. I was so darn sick it was scary. This past Thursday I started having problems with the big "D". I would go about once every hour and that continued into Friday as well. My belly just felt really sour and I thought it was my Crohn's flaring up, because I'm not doing very well with that, again. Then, Friday evening I started to feel nauseaus, and at 10pm the vomiting began. Every fifteen minutes I continued to have "D", followed with puking at the same time (Isn't that disgusting?), until 4am. I made myself continue drinking fluids - Sprite, Gatorade, water, lemonade, popsicles, anything - but everything literally went straight out or up. It got to the point that I was dry heaving nothing, could hardly walk, and I couldn't even lift Owen I was so weak.

I started to think I needed to go to the hospital when I tried nursing Owen and no milk came out. He was getting fussy and I was scared for him and me. I think between nursing and my weakened immune system (thank you, Mr. Crohn's), that my body simply could not fight off the flu. On Saturday, Ben and I began talks of going to the hospital, which made me cry because we are so poor right now we just simply can't afford another hospital bill when we're still paying on Owen's NICU bills. Ben told me my health is more important, so he helped me take a bath, dressed me, and put me in the van while I dry heaved the entire way to the hospital. Once we arrived we had to wait 2.5 hours to go in, then they gave me two liters of fluid, two doses of Zofran, one dose of Phenergrin (I have no clue how to spell that!), one huge dose of steroids (to help with the blood loss I'm experiencing with my Crohn's flare up), plus one dose of pain meds because I had the worst headache and strained neck from retching so much while puking.

I felt better while getting the fluids, but the Zofran didn't do too much. The Phenegrin, however, made me feel drunk, and made my arms and legs shake uncontrollably like I was having mini seizures. I fell asleep immediately because it made me so woozy, but the doctors reassured Ben I was okay with my tremors and if it got too bad they could give me Benedryl to counteract it. I ended up not needing it.

Sunday, I finally felt much better and was able to eat after 48 hours.....and then Ben and Conner came down with it. Thankfully, it didn't hit them too hard and Ben even went to work today. It was round two for Conner, though. He was sick Thurdsday and threw up five times, but on Saturday/Sunday he only threw up once but had the big D with it.

My milk still isn't back to normal, but I do have some and Owen isn't fussing over it. I'm just hoping that in the next couple days as I rehydrate that it'll come back. At least that is what I'm praying for.

Oh, and can I vent about our insurance lately? When the New Year rolled around Ben was informed that our insurance is changing, and we now have to pay $630 a month, plus pay the first $8,000 dollars before the insurance company will pay for ANYTHING. So, my Crohn's medicine that costs $400-500 a month will no longer work because we just can't afford it, and we'll have to pay for everything that I just had in the hospital. Ben is job searching, and actually, Cummins has a job posted that meets Ben's exact pay rate plus they have great insurance. Please pray for us that he lands this job. We're really sinking with these new rates.