Halloween 2010

This short story is going to be long one...but aren't all my stories like that?! :)

Halloween 2010...otherwise known as The Worst Halloween EVER! Well, it didn't start out bad, but it definitely ended badly. Terrible, actually. We went to church and Sunday school, which were great...and then we went to lunch with friends at Double Dave's Pizza (the one at Hwy 59/Kirby). When we got home, Caleb went down for his nap, Rhett played a video game, and I went to Kohl's and Walmart. It was a nice afternoon. I got back from shopping at around 4pm and I realized that I had forgotten to start the crock pot for dinner. Rhett said he still felt full from lunch so he wasn't too concerned about dinner anyway. I figured we'd just go pick something up whenever we got hungry.

At around 5pm, we put Caleb in his Halloween costume and took him in the backyard to take some pictures. Rhett said his stomach was feeling kinda weird and he still felt really full from lunch. We didn't think too much of it. Rhett has a weird stomach anyway! We took Caleb back inside and fed him his dinner at around 5:30pm. The timing of the next sequence of events is a little fuzzy in my mind, but I believe around 6pm we put Caleb in the bath. Rhett was bathing him, but he called me in there to finish up because he felt like he was going to vomit. While I was getting Caleb out of the tub, that is exactly what happened....Rhett got sick. Afterwards, he said he felt better. About that time, my stomach starting feeling weird but I thought it was maybe all in my head just because Rhett had gotten sick. We continued to play with Caleb and even answered the door once or twice for some trick-or-treaters.

Well, my stomach continued to feel weird so I decided that I would make myself vomit (sorry if that's TMI) because I really wanted to feel better. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately?) I did not have to make myself. It happened without any effort...and then I felt better! By this time, Rhett started feeling bad again and while I was putting Caleb to bed (this was around 7:15pm probably), he got sick again. Then, after I put Caleb down, I got sick again. This is when all heck broke loose! I don't know the exact timing of these events but what I do know is that we were both "getting sick" (not just vomiting if you know what I mean) about every 5 minutes and it was BAD. We both kept going from the bed to the bathroom(s) with no relief. I have never felt so sick in my entire life and I hope I never do! At some point, Rhett decided that we needed to call his mom (she's a nurse practitioner) so he called her and told her what was going on. She was going to call in some Zofran for us and asked if we could get someone to pick it up for us. Between trips to the bathroom, Rhett managed to call Jarod and he said he could pick up the meds for us.

By this time (I think it was around 9pm or so?), Rhett really started going downhill. I called his mom back to tell her Jarod would pick up our meds, and while I was on the phone with her, Rhett started complaining that his muscles were cramping up and his limbs were going numb. Oddly enough, I started feeling better and managed to stay out of the bathroom for a while. Mrs. Donna thought Rhett's symptoms sounded very strange so she told me to call 911. I hung up with her and called 911 and after answering all their questions, they sent an ambulance out. I called Jarod back and asked if he could come to the house a.s.a.p. instead of going to the pharmacy. The ambulance arrived and I was still feeling ok...not great, but at least I wasn't getting sick. After about 15 minutes or so, we decided to have the ambulance take Rhett to the ER and I would follow. Oh, I forgot to mention....by this point, we were pretty certain that this was food poisoning (from Double Dave's, since that's the last and only thing both of us had eaten together).

Jarod stayed at the house with Caleb (who was asleep) and we went to the ER at about 9:45pm, I think. Of course, since it was Halloween there were lots of neighbors out so we had quite the audience. The medics actually knocked on our neighbor's door first thinking that was the house, so she and her husband were out in our front yard (along with other neighbors) wondering what was going on. How embarassing! Anyway...they gave Rhett a liter of fluids and some IV Zofran in the ambulance. He got checked in and I sat down next to him in the room. I was still feeling ok but still a little queasy. I was thinking my sickness had passed when suddenly, it hit me again after sitting there with Rhett for probably 30 minutes. The nurse took one look at me and said, "you should probably check yourself in as well." So that's what I did. They gave me the room right next to Rhett (who, by this time, was not getting sick anymore) and started an IV for fluids and Zofran. We also both had to give urine samples and blood samples. I think after it was all said and done, Rhett got 3 liters of fluids and I got 2 liters and we both got the IV meds for nausea.

Once we both got plenty of fluids and nausea meds, we felt much better. Rhett's weird muscle symptoms were most likely caused by an electrolyte imbalance from being severely dehydrated. I'm glad we decided to go to the ER b/c it would have been a terribly long ordeal without those IV fluids and meds! We were both super exhausted from our all-night fiasco and they finally released us at about 3:30am! Rhett had actually slept most of the time we were there, but I just cannot sleep in bright light (and a terribly uncomfortable ER bed...and it was freezing, too!). I was pooped. We went by the 24-hour Walgreen's and picked up our prescriptions and finally got home at around 4am. I felt so bad that Jarod had to stay at the house for that long, but so thankful that he was willing to help us out! My parents came the next morning from Woodville to help us out for the day. They watched and played with Caleb almost all day so we could get caught up on our sleep! I don't know what we would have done without their help.

I don't think we'll be eating pizza for a very long time after this! We ate very light for the next few days after the ordeal. Our nextdoor neighbor (an older lady) even brought us over some homemade chicken soup one day. So, the moral of this story is...never eat at the Double Dave's on Hwy 59 and Kirby!!

The one thing (besides how expensive this little ER trip was!) that upsets me the most is that I slept right through the sign-up for Mother's Day Out/Bible study childcare for the spring. It was at 8am on Monday and since I was completely out of it, that was the last thing on my mind. When I woke up at 11:30am, I remembered, and because it is so "competetive" to get a spot, Caleb's age group was already filled! GRRRRRRR!!!!!! It's not the end of the world, but it does mean that I can't do the 2nd part of the Motherwise study and that stinks! Oh well.

And to end this very long post on a happy note, here are the pictures we took of Caleb that afternoon before our day took a turn for the worse. As I've said before, he hates grass so he wasn't too happy about this photo session! (my camera settings were not right now that I look at these pics. Caleb looks like he's the same color as the fence. Weird.)


He's cutting like 4 teeth right now so he's always got his fingers in his mouth.

I see this about a million times a day. He reaches for everything and grunts. And when I say everything, I mean ev-er-ry-thing! I don't even know what he's reaching for most of the time, LOL. This particular time, he was reaching for his swing (and demanding to be put in it with a very adament "ugggh" grunting sound)

He really wanted to swing!

Isn't he the cutest little Batman ever?!

We think so!