Last Thursday, around 5am, Yuheng had a few coughs and vomited out phlegm. Later on, he vomited again, but this time mostly water. This happened for a few more times and we knew something is wrong. He complained he's not feeling well, stomach pain and feeling very uncomfortable. Before we left the house to go to the Paed clinic, we gave him some milo fearing he might be hungry from the vomiting.
After the Paed's diagnosis, Yuheng had
viral gastroenteritis, commonly known as
stomach flu. He's unable to take in any liquid, not to mention solids. Whatever goes in will definitely come out later and this will hinder the healing process due to the swelling of the intestines whenever he vomits. The Paed gave us an option to admit Yuheng. If admitted, they'll do a drip on him for 24 hours, at least he won't be hungry for the whole day. They'll also administer medication through the drip, helping to speed up the recovery. Seeing Yuheng so uncomfortable and in pain, we choose to admit him.
It aren't easy putting on a drip for a young toddler. The nurses have to coax and distract him and paste some nice stickers on the plasters to make it look "less sickly". Fortunately, throughout the 2 nights stay there, Yuheng is quite cooperative. He did tried to pull out the drip once but after much persuasion and coaxing from the nurses and us, he knew it's effortless to try to take it out. He'll hurt himself more in the end.
The anti-vomit and antibiotics work effectively after the first dose. Yuheng's vomiting stopped. Due to the previous hectic night, he's so tired that he slept most of the time for the first day. He asked for food and though we tried hard not to give any, it's tough when we're the parents of the sick child. He had some bits and pieces of biscuits and bread.
After a day's rest, Yuheng looked much energetic the following day. He started to ask to go back home. He's bored tied to the drip machine and confine to within the small room. The furthest we can bring him is outside his room, along the corridoor for a short stroll. It must have been a traumatic experience for him that he associate going to the Paed clinic for a review as "poking needles onto his hands again". We explained to him no more poking of needles and water bag, then he showed some agreement to go to the clinic.
Throughout these few days, we're grateful to our family members who have came to visit Yuheng, showering him with their love and concern. Also, with their help, we can safely leave Yuzhe with them, while we were too occupied accompanying Yuheng and staying over with him in the hospital.
This bout of virus is spreading quite widely that hubby and myself have succumbed to it. Both of us had stomach cramps, vomiting and cold shivers on Sunday. Fortunately, we try to rest whenever we can and won the battle against the virus. And yesterday, our maid too complained about stomach pain but no vomiting. We wondered if she also caught the virus from us. And this morning, Yuzhe vomited out some milk and was a bit feverish. We brought him together with Yuheng for his review and he too can't escape from the virus. Yuzhe caught a mild viral flu and was given some medication.
So you see, it's inevitable that the whole family will catch the virus together and fallen sick one after another. But, it's not a joke when both of us were sick and still need to attend to the kids. We really struggled to keep ourselves awake, at the same time enduring the painful cramps and constant cold shivers.
Poor boy with the painful drip on his left hand

