New Here... Need Help
Hi! I am new here. I have looked at this forum several times over the past couple of years but haven't joined yet. But I think it would be a great place to get some advice, help and encouragement. Sorry this is so long.. please bear with me. thank you to those of you who take the time to read it all!!!
First some history..I've had a mild case of emet since I was pretty young. I really was not very sick as a child or anything so I don't know.. the few times I had bugs, I guess it scarred me pretty bad. I have only thrown up once since I was 8... after a 13 year streak of no throwing up.. I thought I was invincible and caught a stomach bug from my niece at 21 years old. It was a bad one that hit pretty much everyone around. After that the fear got much worse, because I knew that I wasn't invincible anymore. I am 29 now and haven't thrown up since then. I even taught preschool and made it through without throwing up... but the stress of kids being sick all the time wore me out and I just couldn't do it anymore. It's sad I know. That was over 5 years ago. I've never really been too bad about it unless I hear about someone around me being sick.. then I would avoid them like crazy. And as long as it's not in my house, I know how it infects you and everything. I wash my hands like mad during cold and flu season and I even take airborne a lot. I really don't obsess over it all the time or anything.
Well... about 4 years ago I went through a divorce because my ex husband was cheating on me.. not a big deal.. I'm well past that now. Well 3 years ago, I met this really great guy.. fell in love.. well he had 2 small boys from his previous marriage. They were 2 and 3 when I met him. We married a year and a half ago. They both have birthdays coming up and will be 5 and 6 soon. This has been hard! They are sick all the time!!!!!! Literally almost every other month one of them or both is sick. I can handle the colds and pretty much anything along those lines. Somehow in the past 3 years, we have escaped all of their stomach bugs. DH always tells me that he has never caught a stomach bug from them and telling me parents don't get sick as much as there children do. I'm sure there is some truth to this. But this doesn't stop me from becoming a panicy mess when one of them gets sick. I will go 2 or 3 days barely eating anything.. sleeping with a trash can next to the bed.. even after that I'm scared. We only have them on the weekends but it seems like they only ever get sick like that on the weekends. Everytime we clean like mad and I make everyone wash there hands like crazy and DH and I start taking airborne like crazy trying to boost our immune systems. And even the following weekend we will be so cautious.Amazingly we've always made it through.
Well, here's where it gets tougher and I will share the latest problem.. that I'm freaking out about and need reassurance about....
I'm 11 weeks pregnant... I have always wanted to have a baby, but I was scared of getting pregnant for fear of morning sickness. But, I read that zofran is amazing for that and we went on with trying. Here I am.. I did talk my dr into giving me zofran, when I started getting bad nausea at 5 weeks. It works amazing.. I haven't thrown up once with it and hopefully I'm almost out of this phase anyway. Only another week in the first trimester.
But now... we are in cold and flu season again! Kids are back in school and bringing stuff home. We've already had a couple of colds.. and this past Sunday the youngest one woke up and started throwing up! He threw up at first by the kitchen table.. and DH tried to run him to the bathroom.. he spit a bit on the carpet and the rest in the toilet... We then put him to bed with a trash can. He threw up 3 more times in there. This only went on about an hour and a half.. then bounced back. by noon or so he was fine. But Dealing with this before was bad, but dealing with it while pregnant is so much worse!! DH cleaned everything up and I made my bleach/water solution and sprayed it on the kitchen floor where he threw up.. and I couldn't put it on the carpet since it will discolor it, so I just lysoled it (I know this doesn't necessarily kill those bugs, I can hope though. I sprayed down everything in the bathroom with the bleach spray.. and everything within a couple of feet from where he was in the kitchen. I hope this was good enough. When DH cleaned everything up I made him wear gloves and a mask. Unfortunately when his son first threw up in the kitchen and in the bathroom, he wasn't protectedso I'm hoping and praying he didn't injest any while helping him. I did make him wear them when helping him in the bedroom though. I know DH gets annoyed but he knows how I am and he tries to help me. I also made everyone else use the half bath the rest of the day.. I've washed all of the step sons bedding and clothes in hot water and dried them well.. hopefully this kills everything?? We dont' have a dishwasher.. so we just washed all dishes very throughly with hot water. We took them back to their moms Sunday night... like I said he seemed to be better by noon. So who knows if it was even a contagioius bug if he was over it so quickly? But regardless I don't know so I'm so paranoid..
Of course being pregnant I can't avoid eating.. so I've just been eating the bare minimum and drinking tons of water. I've made DH up the vitamin C intake and I have too. Just trying to boost the immune system. He keeps reminding me we haven't caught one from them yet.. but I know my immune system is down from being pregnant.. and even knowing that never makes me feel any better anyway. I'm still paranoid. It's been nearly 60 hours since he last threw up.. and we don't have it yet. I've read things that say up to 72 hours. But I've seen bugs take 4 days to get from one of the boys to the other. So I probably won't feel in the clear until Thursday at least. Then I get online and see people saying it can sometimes take a week to get infected!!! I'm going crazy! I'm paranoid that germs are in the carpet and we are spreading them. I did use the steam cleaner on the area tonight. I'm nervous that his brother is still going to get it. Even though they are at their moms until Friday. If he's going to get it shouldn't he have it too by Thursday? But then I'll be paranoid of him bringing the germs back into the house on Friday or even possibly not getting it until he is here on the weekend. And I'll be panicy all next week again... and we have an ultrasound next Tuesday and Wednesday night (the 26th) DH and I are going out of town together. I just don't want to be obsessing over this stuff. So I'm praying we don't get it and no one is sick this weekend....... UGH. This is my stress right now! I just really need some advice and support. Being pregnant makes this fear a million times worse.
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