a quart low...

after we returned from georgia calvary developed a high fever and an attitude. i called the doctor and i was instructed to bring him in as soon as i could. once i got him there, dr. walker immediately told me that they had hand foot and mouth disease. i think i audibly voiced my shock by saying, "really?" she then showed me the spots that were developing on the palms of his hands and the blisters in his throat. i left thinking that life would return to normal in the next few hours. boy was i wrong. everyone i had ever spoken to about hfm said that it was a pretty inconsequential illness...harper had the same spots on her throat and was unfazed by it for the most part. enter calvary.
every waking moment...literally...was miserable. he refused to eat or drink because of the blisters on his cheeks, tongue, and throat. all of this led to our arrival at the hospital on friday evening. he had gone 21 hours without peeing.
at this point i realized that my congratulations for staying dry through the night were a bit near sighted. he hadn't really accomplished anything outside of demonstrating an iron will to starve himself to the point of dehydration.
i'm impressed.
and mad.
once we arrived at the hospital he was hooked up to an IV and given an entire bag of fluid. he didn't make a peep except for the occasionally flirtatious giggle at the nurses the entire time they stuck his teeny arm....but the minute they brought in a popsicle and medicine they saw the crazy side.


calvary's eyes in this picture shows just how listless he had become...i called my ped this afternoon and said i must be a terrible mother to have let my child go 21 hours without peeing and not realize he was dehydrated...she assured me that since he had only taken one bag of fluid that he was "just a quart low"...

this picture shows how quickly the loratab and fluids worked to improve his demeanor and spark. at this point i thought we were smooth sailing...

once again...i knew nothing.

the weekend was nothing short of misery. every meal. every nap. every night was a battle. we weren't going to fill the prescription for loratab because i thought that it was a bit too heavy for such a little boy, but by saturday afternoon we were at our wits ends. we headed off to target and were ready to give him his first dose in the parking lot. he screamed. he spit. he took the medicine. we looked forward to a nice nap but loratab seems to have the opposite effect on calvary; needless to say, he has not been given another dose.

this is how calvary spent saturday. the grin is only a sinister, sadistic display of his satisfaction with the misery he put us through. i think. i thought he was stuck that way forever. i was buckling myself in for the long haul and then on monday morning he did something pure. he smiled. a sweet, pure smile crawled across his face and it wasn't until that moment that i realized that i had not seen that smile in a week. monday was riddled with outbreaks of madness...but tuesday has been better. i would have never thought i would hate a childhood illness so much. i can handle quite a bit but this little illness truly kicked my behind.

calvary at the hospital