Vomit, Illness, Relapses and Pseudo-Relapses

My daughter woke up at midnight last night.  She is well trained, and called for her father (I answer the calls of our son).  It sounded like she had a bad dream, because she had her waily frightened voice on.  She and Ryan had a conversation, but I couldn't really hear what they were talking about on the monitor.  When Ryan finally got back into bed, our conversation went like this, bad dream?  Sore tummy.  Oh, Eve was sick on Saturday.  We both then rolled over and did our best to go back to sleep.  What should have happened was, oh Eve was sick on Saturday, ok I'll get up and fetch a bucket for our princess.  I was hoping he would do it and I bet he was hoping I would do it.  But of course, 15 minutes later when we were asleep, there was a cry over the monitor, Daddy...Daddy I'm going to spew!  Ryan fumbled for the monitor and said hold on because he was coming... but it was all too late.  Princess had puked in her bed.

I rather reluctantly got up and followed Ryan down the hall.  I hate vomit.  I hate the way it looks, I hate the way it smells, I hate the way it feels when you vomit and I really, really, really hate that it nearly makes you vomit yourself when having to deal with someone else’s vomit.  I rarely vomit - if I do you can safely assume that I am dying.  It was very unfortunate for me that my beautiful boy, Sabin, suffered badly from reflux.  I was vomited on more times than I'd care to remember - not like a little dribble of milky spit, but usually a full feed of half digested and curdy milk, almost after every feed.  We started to feed him solids at four months, so the vomiting progressed to foody-milk vomits.  I have never vomited in my own hair (and never plan too), but my son has.  I am surprised that I never threw up myself...  I guess in the end I just kinda got used to it.  Thank goodness for Losec.  My groom and I had a fairly good routine worked out.  He would take Sabin and clean him up and I would best work out how to get my clothes off without covering myself further in warm gooey vomit.

Back to the princess then... when I got into her room, Ryan had scooped her up and rushed her to the toilet.  She said I'm going to be sick again, Ryan muttered, just wait... but then I heard the splatter on the ground - too late.  He cleaned her up and I stripped the bed.  I really wanted to help more by washing the vomit off the sheets, but I couldn't do it.  Ryan is my hero.  He washed the vomit off the sheets and cleaned it off the floor.

Half an hour later, my brave little princess was back in bed with her bucket.  She didn't complain, but I think our dog Humphrey assisted in this department. (He always looks miserable in photos - but he's far from it in real life).  He loved her with a snugly cuddle while I was remaking her bed.  Whenever my kids are sick, I always feel like I am a cruel mother because I keep my distance.  Perhaps any mother with MS might understand this... I don't know.

When my friends came over for dinner on Saturday night and mentioned that my goddaughter Eve had projectile chucked and that poo had leaked out her nappy, alarm bells rang.  I told myself to stay calm.  It would have been rude to ask them to leave.  I have this whole thing about how I will cope when my kids get sick – SICK KIDS FREAK ME OUT, especially ones who are going to puke everywhere or have a fever, or have such a badly blocked nose that they wake up constantly throughout the night.

But the other reason I tend to freak out is because I might get sick.  And for anyone that has MS this could ramp your immune system into a frenzy of action, whereby it decides that your central nervous system, in particular your myelin surrounding the nerves is the E-N-E-M-Y.  Infections such as, colds, skin infections and urinary infections can bring on a relapse, or a period of time whereby my immune system is running rampant, destroying perfectly healthy and indispensable myelin causing sometimes irreversible damage and thus the unpredictable symptoms of MS.  MS is an immune-mediated disease, hell it may even be an autoimmune disease but the specific antibody or immune reaction has not yet been identified.  Other triggers maybe vaccinations, although I still get vaccinated and stress and obviously, I still get stressed.  These triggers are still debated.

While I'm on relapses, I thought I'd write about pseudo-relapses because they are a pain in the butt and sometimes confusing and scary.  When someone with MS experiences a rise in their core body temperature by as little of half a degree say from hot weather, exercise or fever they may experience a temporary increase in their symptoms.  Once the core temp is back to normal the symptoms subside.  No extra damage is done, its just nerve impulses in hot conditions have further trouble travelling along damaged myelin.

Anyway my princess stayed home from school - we ummed and ahhed about it, then I decided that I didn't think any of the other mothers I know would appreciate having to get up at midnight to deal with spew, especially if their husbands are not as accommodating as mine.  She's driving me crazy, but she is fine.