Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Rory and the Rotovirus

We have been fairly lucky with Rory during his first year in terms of illnesses - a sniffle here and there, a minor case of the runs, a chicken pox scare that turned out to be nothing.

Until now.

Rory has been diagnosed with Rotovirus, which apparently is a very common illness in children under the age of two. It's so common that our doctor was able to diagnose him over the phone without even seeing him simply by having us describing the symptoms. And oh, what fun symptoms they are! (You may want to pass over this next paragraph if don't want the somewhat graphic details.)

Rory has diahrea so badly that he literally explodes each time he goes to the bathroom, and then proceeds to leak through every diaper and every article of clothing we put on him. He also is having trouble keeping food down and had projectile vomited on several occasions (mostly when his father was watching him, thank God!). As you can probably imagine, our house has trash bags full of dirty diapers and piles of soiled laundry all over the place. Definitely not the most delightful place to be. And the best part about it? There's absolutely nothing you can do for Rotovirus - no medicine or magic pill. It just has to run it's course, which can last anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. THREE WEEKS, people. Just shoot me now.

And to top it all off, the poor kid is TEETHING, which is traumatizing enough for a baby as it is. So basically we've got a pretty miserable little dude on our hands (and trust me, his parents aren't the most thrilled, either.)

I think that if I have one more sleepless night, or have to change one more totally disgusting diaper while my child screams in pain from diaper rash, I may have to throw myself out a window.

Okay, maybe not really throw myself. Perhaps I'll just bang my head against it for awhile...

2 comments:

lnstryker said...

Poor baby... Quinn had similar diarrhea issues 15-20x a day that turned out to be aeromonas bacterial infection. Not violent puking with that one and drug to kill the bug, although the antibiotics gave him diarrhea too, so it was hard to figure out how long it infection was the problem versus other stuff. We will pray for a short run for you guys. Hope to see you soon....maybe Sat for Quinns b-day in you all are healthy and awake :-) Anyway, we understand your misery and wouldn't wish it on the world. Take care.

JGreene said...

maybe we should retitle this post "grandpa and the rotovirus."