A resurgence of the tummy bug in our home has reminded us that words are not the only way to say ‘I love you’.
This time The Apprentice was one of the hardest hit by the bug, experiencing projectile expulsion of noxious matter from both ends. Her insides were so twisted in pain and her woeful moaning so loud during the night that Mr T wasn’t sure if she was in pain or the throws of passion. Unfortunately for TAB (The Apprentice’s Boyfriend), he was staying at our place, so he became The Apprentice’s nurse for the night.
While Mr T and I spent the night changing Tomboy’s bed sheets and holding her hair back while she vomited, TAB did the same for The Apprentice. When The Apprentice was stuck on the toilet and a bucket didn’t arrive in time, TAB didn’t hesitate to mop up the resultant mess. He helped her to the shower, cleaned her up and then sought new sheets for their bed. Not once did I hear him complain.
He was even chivalrous about The Apprentice’s mishaps. When I saw him changing the bed sheets, I said, ‘Oh no, did she get the bed too?’
TAB said nothing. He just gave me a sad, but knowing look. Then The Apprentice said, ‘It just shot out my bum before I knew it was even coming.’
‘You shit the bed?!’ I exclaimed.
TAB continued to change the sheets, and then helped The Apprentice back into bed before climbing in next to her. If getting back into bed with someone after they’ve shit in it doesn’t say ‘I love you’, I don’t know what does.
Once again we are under attack as another tummy bug barges into our home. (More on that in a later post.) It doesn’t seem to matter how many dirty nappies the children watch me change or how much vomit they ogle when one of their siblings heaves into a bucket, they have an obscene fascination for the waste products that leave our bodies.
Sometimes this fascination extends to our internal organs as well. While waiting to pay the bill after having a renal ultrasound one morning, Boywonder asked me why we were at a different doctor to where we usually go. I explained that the doctor needed to look at my kidneys and bladder.
‘Did he take them out and have a look? Can I look too?’ asked Boywonder as he grabbed my shirt, ready to lift it and look for himself.
After I explained that the doctor uses a special machine to see my kidneys and bladder, and it certainly doesn’t involve taking them out, Boywonder then asked,
‘What’s a bladder? Can I look at your bladder?’
I enlightened my budding anatomist by placing a little pressure on his bladder and asking him if it made him want to wee.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘That’s your bladder!’
He was finally happy with these explanations. That was until I had to pick up another four-litre bottle so I could perform the 24-hour urine test again.
After we arrived home, Boywonder picked the bottle up and asked, ‘Do you have to wee in the bottle again, Mummy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I wee in it too?’
‘NO!’ I replied as I took the bottle from him.
‘But I have a bladder too!’ was Boywonder’s argument.
‘Everyone has a bladder, but they are not all going to be contributing to my bottle!’ I replied, hugging the bottle to my chest. I then hurried to the toilet with my bottle before Boywonder gave me the lecture on sharing that he’d heard so often from me.
The week before before Mr T went into hospital to have his salivary gland removed, we were invaded by tummy bugs. These weren’t your usual tummy bugs that laid you out on the couch for 24 hours with your head in a bucket. They were smart bugs that moved with stealth. They camouflaged themselves well and threw random vomit bombs at the children, so each time a child had finished coating their bed in vomit, they felt well enough to run about and play again…until the next vomit bomb hit.
Boywonder fought well and only succumbed for half a day. Great for him; not so great for us. Our expectations for the girls’ recovery were completely misled by his quick recovery.
The next night Tomboy’s first vomit bomb hit at 11 pm.
Miss Flora woke at 5 am – where she was sleeping next to me in our bed – and vomited on the bed. Later that day she woke from her afternoon nap and climbed onto my lap for a cuddle. Without any warning, I – and my leather office chair – were hit with a decimating vomit bomb. With no one in the room to assist in the defence, I tried to calmly yell for help. Miss Flora was already distressed at this strange substance hurtling itself out of her body, and I knew that she’d misinterpret my call for help as panic if I yelled too loud or too fast. I didn’t want to scare Miss Flora and cause the shrapnel to fall on the carpet. She looked around as I called, so I placed my palm on the side of her face and gently turned her face towards me. ‘Keep looking at Mummy in case anymore comes out.’ I didn’t want her to vomit on the carpet, and since I was already coated in it…
I told her to vomit on me!
In between the vomit bombs they were up and playing like normal, so each time we thought it was safe to pack away the buckets, the attack would start again.
Later that day it was Tomboy’s turn again – on the carpet outside the bathroom – two feet from the tiled bathroom floor.
A couple of hours after we got all three bedded down for the night, Tomboy was again under attack. We actually had Miss Flora sleeping in her cot (instead of our bed), but after another assault on Tomboy we couldn't sleep. Every time we heard Miss Flora make a noise or move, we thought she was going to vomit, so we'd leap out of bed with bowl in hand ready to catch it. Finally, at around 1 am, she made a wet noise with her mouth, so I leapt out of bed with the bowl, Mr T turned the lamp on and our panic woke her. She hadn't vomited, she was just lip-smacking in her sleep.
So then we had to take her into our bed. Mr T moved to the single mattress on the floor and was soon snoring. I spent the rest of the night lying in our bed next to Miss Flora, who has gone back to sleep on her blanket and towel (to protect our bed), listening to Mr T snore. Great! His charge has vomited, so there's a good chance he won't have to get up again through the night, but I'm lying here next to the other one waiting for the inevitable. Every time Miss Flora made a sound or moved I'd sit up in bed and reach for the bowl. I also had to stay close to her to ensure she stayed on the side of the bed that had the towel and blanket protecting it, so I was constantly in the firing line when she was facing me.
After all that, she didn't vomit again!
The tummy bug attack was over…or was it?
Unfortunately, two days after Mr T’s operation I succumbed to the tummy bug. A few hours later Mr T succumbed to it. Fortunately for me, I hadn’t had a major operation inside my mouth. Unfortunately for Mr T – he had.
Mr T took a few weeks off work to give me a chance to rest and then work out which activities fatigued me. It was imperative to create a new routine that enabled me to manage my CFS when home alone with three children under five. Having a laptop and desktop computer meant Mr T could check his emails without interrupting me, but having his email arriving in the inbox on the desktop and laptop computers caused a bit of confusion.
Both of us were busy tapping away on our computers, I at the desk and he on the lounge with the laptop, when I had a sudden urge to send him a loving email. I sent a red ‘I LOVE YOU’ in the largest font possible to him. As soon as he received it, he sent back, ‘I love you more’ in the normal size font with extra large ‘XXXX’ after it; his way of trumping my large letters.
I couldn’t top this so I sent back, ‘I’m pretending I didn’t see that!’
Our loving email exchange should have finished there, but I forgot that all emails that I sent to Mr T, were also received in the inbox on the computer I was using. As soon as I saw, ‘I’m pretending I didn’t see that!’ I thought he was mocking me, so I replied, ‘Go away, I’m trying to work! I love you.’
Yep, I’d just answered my own email. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, I also replied to my ‘Go away…’ email with ‘You are so getting smacked when I’ve finished.’
Mr T found this highly amusing when he discovered I was answering my own emails!
Reading a news item (Buzzard Attacks Slow Cyclist) about a cyclist being attacked by a buzzard, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own buzzard-like children.
As Miss Flora grows, her food intolerances continue to persist. Unfortunately, her ability to recognise when others are eating has created a new challenge in managing her intolerances; she wants to eat what she sees everyone else eating. She can still be bought off with one of her rice biscuits or wheat and dairy-free fruit bars, but Boywonder and Tomboy can’t. They’re ability to spot the slightest movement of a jaw trying to chew a lolly or chocolate inconspicuously is inhuman. This has made it extremely hard for me to have a sneaky Cornetto during the day.
Imagine a quiet afternoon, where I’ve miraculously managed to get Miss Flora down for a nap. It’s one of those cold and wet winter days, so Boywonder and Tomboy are snuggled under their blankets on the couch engrossed in a DVD. I look over at them and am hit with an overwhelming craving for a Cornetto. Okay, it’s not really a craving; it’s probably procrastination prolonging the distraction from writing by throwing me a challenge. Regardless, the more I think about not being able to have that Cornetto, or how hard it will be to eat it without Boywonder or Tomboy noticing, the more I want it.
If I move too quickly in the direction of the kitchen they’ll sense the urgency and follow out of curiosity. If I move to slowly and either of them notices they’ll be on to me like buzzards on a slow cyclist.
*Cue Mission Impossible Music* I move slowly towards the kitchen. Once in there I know the chances of them hearing me open the freezer and Cornetto box are great, so I get out a couple of sweet biscuits for them first. I place the biscuits on the bench where they will see them as soon as they enter the kitchen. So far, so good. Neither of them have followed me or noticed any of the noise I’m making. (Why is everything channelled through an amplifier when you’re trying to be quiet?) I sneak the Cornetto out of the box and secret it between my shirt and jacket. Time is of the essence now; the Cornetto feels painfully cold through my thin shirt and my body heat is going to make it melt even faster. My ability to mix stealth and speed is so amazing that I stop for a second to consider a future in action movies. A shuffling sound from the lounge room reminds me of my mission and that I’m really only a little bit faster than a slow cyclist about to be attacked by a buzzard. I reach my bedroom and rip the wrapper from the Cornetto.
I try to enjoy my moment of secret indulgence as the caramel ice-cream melts in my mouth and my teeth crunch the tiny pieces of toffee, but as much as my mouth revels in the sensation, my ears and mind are elsewhere. The act of hiding in my bedroom, indulging in a guilty pleasure with my ears straining to here anyone that might catch me is disturbingly similar to a teenage boy experimenting in masturbation. I try to focus on enjoying the Cornetto, but with every bite of the ice-cream filled waffle cone, of which milk and wheat are two main ingredients, my mind is busy rationalising that one Cornetto filtered through my breast milk won’t upset Miss Flora’s tummy.
Unable to truly enjoy the moment at a slow and indulgent pace, the Cornetto is gone and I’m left with sticky hands. I bury the wrapper in the bathroom bin, wash my hands and tiptoe downstairs. Passing through the kitchen I pick up the sweet biscuits I’d left as a distraction for the buzzards and enter the lounge room.
‘You’ve been so good quietly watching your movie, here’s a couple of bikkies for you,’ I say to Boywonder and Tomboy as I hand them the biscuits.
I sit back down at my desk and start typing while I convince myself I’m more akin to a slow cyclist than a teenage boy.
Mr T is one of those men that will suffer through random bouts of pain if it means he can avoid going to the doctor. As long as the pain subsides occasionally he’ll soldier through it, because it’s easier to cope with than hearing a medical professional tell him that his blood pressure is too high, his cholesterol levels are worrying and he needs to lose weight.
I have since clued our doctor up on Mr T’s procrastination when it comes to his own health, so when I do get him there, the doctor orders a battery of tests. This presents me with the next challenge – getting Mr T to the pathology rooms.
After four months of further procrastination by Mr T, I tricked him into committing a morning to his blood tests. He thought I was asking for help with the kids; the realisation that I had tricked him reminded him that he had married a woman that wasn’t worried about bending the truth if it meant her husband would take better care of himself. Unfortunately for Mr T, and unbeknownst to me, the doctor had ordered a new test that he’d not had before – the 24-hour urine test.
When Mr T returned home from the pathology rooms, he walked in the front door with a wad of cotton wool stuck to his arm, a ‘why me’ look on his face, and a large plastic shopping bag in his hand.
‘What’s that?’ I asked as I looked at the large pathology emblem plastered on the side of the bag.
Mr T sighed, pulled an empty, 4-litre, plastic bottle out of the bag and said, ‘I have to pee in it.’
He looked miserable, so being the compassionate wife I am, I laughed long and hard, and then proceeded to tell Uni Student about Mr T’s dilemma. She tried to stifle her amusement for a couple of seconds, which was much more restraint than I’d shown. As soon as we stopped laughing, Uni Student’s boyfriend (USB) walked through the door, so we filled him in on the joke. He was his usual polite self and didn’t laugh. He even tried to make Mr T feel better by telling him that USB’s mother had performed the test several times in the past. And that was the end of Uni Student’s and my fun … or was it?
Mr T had to spend twenty-four hours filling his 4-litre bottle with urine. It wasn’t the amount of urine or how long he had to use the bottle for that worried him. It was walking back into a crowded, pathology waiting room with a massive bottle of urine. Pathology waiting rooms aren’t always crowded, but they are when you have a very large, transparent bottle of urine in your hand.
Maintaining a compassionate demeanour while injecting humour into the situation isn’t easy. Determined to make Mr T feel better, I made a few suggestions.
‘I could take bets on how full the bottle is at the end of twenty-four hours.’
Mr T frowned.
‘I could document it with the new video camera!’
Mr T growled.
Sometimes he needs a little encouragement to laugh at himself, so while he was at work I started documenting with the video camera. He’d come around to the idea … eventually … I think.
I soon discovered that it’s not easy coming up with witty things to say about an empty, 4-litre, urine bottle, so I enlisted the help of Boywonder.
‘This is the bottle Daddy has to pee in for twenty-four hours. Do you think he’ll fill it?’ I asked.
‘Yes! Can I pee in it too?’ replied Boywonder.
What boy doesn’t want to share experiences with his dad?! Of course I said no.
When gently telling Mr T about the first instalment in the urine bottle documentary, he announced the idea of his four-year-old son helping fill the bottle as brilliant; healthy young urine would dilute any evil results present in Mr T’s.
My other challenge was ensuring Mr T always used the one toilet that had his wee bottle in it (we have three toilets in our home), so I stuck a note that said, ‘wee wee in bottle’ on the door of the other two toilets. He didn’t find this very amusing either, but I documented it as well (for the sake of posterity).
I’m proud to say that Mr T did very well and toddled off the next morning with his bottle more than half full! Fortunately for us (unfortunately for him), we get to repeat it all again in six months time. Well, he does, we just get to think up new urine bottle jokes.
And the results? – Mr T’s blood pressure is good, but he does need to lose a little weight to help lower his cholesterol. As for the documentary, I saw a smile playing about Mr T’s mouth as he watched The Wee Wee Challenge so I’ve declared it a smiling success.
We celebrate Miss Flora’s first birthday in a couple of weeks. Due to her food intolerances, we’ve had to find a cake that is free from dairy, wheat and cocoa. Basco do a nice tea cake, cake mix, which still contains a small amount of dairy, but we’re hoping there’s not enough to upset Miss Flora’s belly on her big day. We’ll put a little bit of icing on it so she can make a right mess when she tries to wear it. A first birthday isn’t a first birthday without cake on your face, head, arms, fingers, table, Mummy, and Daddy. I’ll let you know how we go.
I'm Mrs T – gluten and wheat intolerant, and allergic to plantain weed and dust mites, a wife, mother, student, writer and editor. I'm married to Mr T, a hard-working and supportive husband and father. I've created five human beings – Junior Accountant, who lives at home with us; The Apprentice, who lives with her boyfriend, TAB (The Apprentice's boyfriend), on the other side of town; and Boywonder, Tomboy, and Miss Flora, who all still wet the bed. JAB (Junior Accountant's boyfriend) is a regular visitor. With my food intolerances and allergies, Junior Accountant's allergies to housework, two school children and a preschooler that makes the most of being the baby of the family, drama is a regular occurrence in our household.
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