Marital Bliss?

Sunday was such a wonderful and sad day. We returned home from our honeymoon, and as happy as I was to see my family, sleep in my own bed, and be back in Kentucky-I was so sad that 100% of our time wouldn't be focusing on our time together like it was on our honeymoon. I was excited to get adjusted to my new life. Jason returned to work on Monday, and I was scheduled to return to work Tuesday. I spent Monday with my parents catching up on life. Monday evening we grabbed Taco Bell and called it a night.

Tuesday was difficult to return to work. Jason leaves about an hour before I do in the mornings, and he told me he was feeling a lot of sinus pressure. Since I had the same problem in Mexico due to the air pressure from the plane, I assumed that this was the same thing. I gave him some medicine, and sent him on his way. Two hours later, he asked if I was feeling ok because his stomach was in a lot of pain and he thought it might have been something from Taco Bell. I told him that I felt fine and brushed off the question. Food that doesn't sit well stinks, but I never imagined it anything serious.

20 minutes later, my poor husband was on his way home from work. Vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, the works. Assuming it was just food poisoning, I stayed at work. He slept a large chunk of the afternoon, but was still vomiting by the time I was heading home. Oral medicine for nausea wasn't working so it was time for my first real "wifely" dirty work duty. The finnigrin suppository. I start telling him what needed to be done, and he FREAKED out. He said that if it had to be done, he would do it. So he did. 30 minutes later-he was STILL vomiting. In fear of even more dehydration, off to UrgentCare we went. And he was pretty unhappy with me that he had to "violate" himself for nothing. Sorry sweetie!! :)

UrgentCare was horrendous. Never again will I take him there. I told the nurse I was extremely concerned with his dehydration since he had been unable to keep liquids down for nearly 12 hours. She assured me that she would send a nurse into the waiting room to check on that for him while we waited for a doctor. We waited an hour and a half in the waiting room, and a poor little three year old girl threw up IN the lobby. The mother frantically requested somewhere that the child could lay down. She said she understood there was a wait, but was there possibly anywhere her child could be more comfortable. The people behind the desk said "Well I guess we would have put her in the pediatric area earlier, but seeing that it's 8:30 (they close at 9) and she has been vomiting, we can't take her back there now. She can't have one of our rooms because they are for people waiting to see a doctor." The mother told them that they should be ashamed for not TRYING to help-and she was taking her daughter to the ER. My regular physician took my mother into an extremely dark room in the office while she had a terrible migrane so that she wouldn't have to wait in the waiting room with lots of light and noise. He couldn't see her out of order, but he made sure he took care of her as much as possible until he could get to her. UrgentCare refused to attempt to make this child more comfortable. After they left, a boy behind the desk (around my age, we went to high school together but barely knew each other) came out and overdramatically sprayed the area with something extremely fragrant to cover up the puke smell. A gentleman in the office asked the boy if the ER would be any quicker. The cocky boy looked at us and said, "Well we are just too ashamed of ourselves to tell you that." I couldn't help it. I blurted out "Wow, that was really professional and mature of you to make that comment in front of everyone." He went back behind the desk while the others continued to make fun of that poor lady. I was infuriated at this point of how they treated that poor lady, that the nurse had not been out to check on my husband, and that we were STILL waiting after we were informed that the wait was around an hour. (We were at 90 minutes at this point.)

Finally, they called us into a room. A lady weighed Jason, and took us to a room. His poor muscles were twitching he was in so much pain. I informed the nurse that we had just returned from Mexico so that they would know to look for other signs of something besides food poisoning. Rather than asking medical questions to help my sick husband she retored "Why in the heck did you go there with the swine flu going on?" I gave her the dirtiest look that I could and said, "You know what, it was our honeymoon, we were no where near the outbreak, and that part doesn't really matter right now. Please just take care of him." She left. 30 minutes later-no one. I got my butt up out of the chair (I was REALLY mad) and went to the nurses station and told them that SOMEONE needed to some in there and check Jason's fluid level because his muscles were starting to twitch, he was feeling faint, and that they were supposed to have already checked on him. Their story was that the front desk never paged them. I believe it.

However, she was no help. As sweet as she was, she was a moron. I know I'm not a nurse, but I have always heard clear liquids when you are that sick. Sprite, water, ginger ale, MAYBE gatorade, etc. She asks him if he wanted grape juice. First of all-nurse lady-he's vomiting 5 minutes after he puts anything into his stomach so having him drink won't help. Second, a DARK, SUGARY liquid?! Really? Even I have more common sense than that. I mentioned an IV. She looks at him and says "Oh I don't think he's that dehydrated, and we don't do that here anyway. You'll have to go to the ER. " I am thunder, hear my roar. I was FURIOUS! I told her that her front desk was a joke and knew that was our main concern and they should have told us that when we arrived. She leaves. The "doctor" comes in, LAUGHS at the idea of food poisoning-and tells us she thinks he has a parasite, but will need a stool sample to be sure. The stool sample would take 4-5 days to get back. Absolutely not. I requested a finnigrin shot for Jason and the oral medication as well. She also wrote him the perscription, but also two others for two different antibiotics without having ANY idea what he had. I absolutely didn't fill them. They just wanted the money for the labs. He got the shot, I went to Walgreens to fill the finnigrin and took him home.

I ended up sleeping on the floor the next two nights at the foot of the bed so that he could have the entire bed and be more comfortable. I didn't want my movements to cause any more discomfort, but really wanted to be in the room with him in case he got sick again.

The next morning we took him to our regular doctor, and after a lengthy, informative conversation came to the conclusion that it was Mexican water that made my dear husband so sick. We were careful not to drink it, but word to the wise: Ice on the airplane returning from a foreign country is NOT filtered water. Poor Jason ate it. I got a different perscription for this, filled it and took him home. I stayed with him for the rest of the day while he slept, somewhat drank and somewhat ate. Jason had been a wonderful patient. Until that evening.

The boy refused to drink! He was still so afraid of throwing up, he wouldn't put more than two sips into his body every other hour. When his temperature elevated to 102 beacuse of his lack of dehydration, I began to feel angry with him. How can I help him if he won't help himself? As awful as I felt about it, I let him have it. I called my sister for Tylenol (we only had ibprofuren) and begged him to drink. He finally did, but he was so hot from the fever nothing worked. Ice packs for his sore back and to cool him off, cool washcloths, nothing helped. And then he became cranky. I won't go into details, because we've already discussed, forgiven and forgotten his words-but he did start listening to me after his outburst.

He attempted to go to work on Thursday, but the banana as his first food of choice wasn't obviously the best choice and was back home before I even left for work. He rested, and touched base with me every hour to tell me how much he drank and what his temperature was. He was finally getting better.

Friday he was back to normal and our horrible week was over! He definitely initiated me into marital duties VERY quickly, but I don't mind. We never expected to start this journey in such a way...but "in sickness and in health."