!Care
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agk's diary
7 March 2023 @ 07:04 UTC
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written on GPD Win 1
in bed with sick Evy and ginger tea
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We got food poisoning, a stomach flu, or something.
I was on the child unit, on hold with pharmacies in
the small out-of-the-way city one of my discharged
kids went home to. A production issue caused short-
age of methamphetamines. His family's pharmacy
couldn't fill his prescriptions. I was trying to
find a pharmacy that was holding.
I couldn't concentrate. I'd felt increasingly awful
for hours. Nausea, hot-and-cold, brain foggy strug-
gling to dial numbers, hyperfocusing, cramping.
"Eum, just 11 hours work on 2 hours sleep," I
thought. "I'll feel better if Amy lets me kick her
the discharge for after she finishes med pass. I
hate to shirk, his family's been here an hour, but
I'll actually take my break today & feel better."
My body evacuated everything. I puked 3 times by
the employee entrance. I somehow made it the hour
drive home. Somehow there was more in me to fill my
home toilets. I knew I was dehydrated but I could
barely change position in bed I felt so awful.
Of course 4 hours after I puked in the bushes, Evy
was bent over our toilet, first daughter was shirt-
less in her room scream-crying, and I was nurse to
all 3 us. I had to move slow. My brain was cooked.
But there's a certain pleasure in doing skilled
care without the high volume industrial assembly
line of the hospital, 1 or 2 nurses to 18 patients.
Evy wanted a salty broth. It made her feel worse
when I brought it. Its hypertonicity pulled fluids
out of her already dehydrated body through her sto-
mach/duodenum. She agreed to a better rehydration
solution. While she shivered in a hot bath I held
first daughter to my warm skin wrapped in a warm
blanket, clothed her back, changed her barely-wet
diaper.
I'd brought the right things, despite my cognitive
deficits. Habit and heuristics worked in my favor.
She was borderline no longer cold. Clothed, cuddled
and blanket-swaddled she quieted. I spooned plain
yogurt in the hungry, sleepy mouth of my girl who
can almost ride a bike. Heat, comfort, fluids,
nourishment. I was able to slowly settle her to
sleep.
Applesauce, babyfood for me. Easiest of the nausea
BRAT (bananas rice applesauce toast) snacks for me
to get. More oral fluids, carefully, while I heated
water, brewed a pot of ginger-mint tea for Evy. Re-
hydration takes more fluids than you think: a pot,
not a cup. Her first cup I fixed like an IV bag:
enough honey and a tiny pinch of salt to transport
fluids across her stomach lining instead of the
bowel where they ordinarily absorb. So she'd get
hydrated quick even if she vomited. A little lemon
for the acidity and potassium, a touch of black
pepper to quiet overstimulated stomach nerves.
Education, coaching. What she knows when well she
forgets in the viscerality of sickness. "This first
cup's your IV fluids. Mouth's nicer than vein.
Drink before sleep or I'll wake you." It's called
forcing fluids. I got her night clothes back on.
She came back to me as the fluids worked. Dehydra-
tion shifts fluid around your body following salts.
That distresses the brain.
I peed a little, dark and scanty. My rehydration
was working. She hasn't peed yet but she's sleeping
quietly after two cups. Baby's sleeping quietly.
Time for me to sleep quietly. Boxes checked: warm,
hydrated-ish, metabolizing calories, irritation
soothed, clean, resting. Sick or not, my family's
cared for. I can rest, and smile.
