Supermom Chronicles

Gurgle, gurgle...bloop, gurgle...Yes that's the serenade my GI tract is singing to me today:) Medically minded ones would call this borborygmas; today I call it miserable. Sometimes I think everything that happens to us in life really is to teach us something. My current experience reminds me to be emphathetic with my patients. I hospitalized a dog on Monday that had "vomited 10-15 times since 5pm Sunday" according to his owner. In front of me I saw a bright, alert but dehydrated dog. I put him on IV fluids, watched him vomit foam about 10 minutes after admission, then gave him some anti-nausea medication. A few hours later he had watery diarrhea, poor guy. For the remainder of the day he stood in his cage like he just wasn't terribly comfortable. I felt sorry for him, mostly because he looked sad in the cage. Little did I know that would be MY medical history a few short hours later. I started feeling nauseous around noon. One of my coworkers joked, "If it's a girl this time, can I have her?" Ha ha. By 1pm I was curled around the clinic toilet finding out how well it really gets cleaned. From 1 to 3:30pm I vomited every 15 minutes or so, totaling somewhere between 10 and 15 times. I felt like my body truly was trying to turn inside out. Eventually I ended up curled up on a pallet on the floor of our office at work hugging our surgery bucket. Not the most professional image:) I realized this is probably exactly what my aforementioned canine patient had been going through. We see "gastroenteritis" on such a routine basis that it's easy to become somewhat complacent about it at work. Well, my empathy has been renewed! Yesterday I felt exhausted (and about 3 lbs lighter), but no more vomiting. So I thought I'd be returning to a day of surgery at work today. Wrong! At 5am today, round 2 started with a vengeance. But the good news is, it looks like I can fit into all of my pre-pregnancy clothes again, at least for a day or so!

I have to give props to my friend and coworker, Leah. She got off work on Monday around 2pm but graciously hung around for over an hour waiting for me to stop vomiting long enough to drive me home. Halfway home things got quiet in the car...I was sure I was going to have to use the trash can we had swiped from work for the trip. But, alas, we made it! Thank you, Leah!


On a lighter note, now that James has officially turned 5 months old, we introduced him to rice cereal this week. It's been hit or miss so far. He likes to watch us eat, but isn't quite sure what to do with it himself.
On the spur of the moment this past Saturday, I decided to take Faith and Cole to the beauty salon (ok, Cost Cutters). This was the first time anyone but me has cut Faith's hair. She was so excited. I let her look at the book with kids' hairstyles and pick the one she wanted. This is it. She looks so much older to me! Good grief. I do like her taste, though. I think she cut off about 5 inches.

Here's a creepy photo. A few weeks ago Cole "accidentally" slammed Faith's fingers in a closet door. Her fingertips swelled up pretty badly and the nails turned dark purple. We figured it was just a matter of time before the nails sloughed off. Well that momentous occasion came this week. I thought Faith would be terrified of the whole situation, but thanks to John, she thinks it's really "cool". Smart daddy.