poop and the E.R.

"It appears Jack and I have the stomach flu. There is poop everywhere" is how Tim described last night's situation. Around midnight, Jack woke up crying. Crying because he'd packed his overnight diaper (the kind that is leak proof under normal circumstances) full of ... well, not pee. It was the scenario that you think about before becoming a parent and wonder, "Will I barf all over my child as I strip him of his feces-soiled clothes?" The answer is no - at least not this time. While one of you may be dry heaving (Tim) outside the bedroom door, the other parent's adrenaline gland is working hard to override the desire to inhale the smell of other-worldly horribleness, all the while speaking softly and kindly to a distressed baby who hasn't quite woken up and doesn't understand why he's being stripped naked and being held under a shower with his shirt still on. Poor guy. There really was poop everywhere. Tim was in the shower with him, so he quickly calmed down and relaxed, even though the steam was only helping to absorb and then accentuate the smell of diarrhea.

After putting a clean Jack back to bed, we stayed up a little longer as Tim had been making frequent trips to the bathroom himself for most of the evening. He won't mind me saying this because he proclaimed it to the world via Facebook. Around 2 a.m. he said he was feeling "weird" and wanted to take his blood pressure (we have a home kit from previous incidents) which was registering at 180 over 120. According to a website he found, a reading like that required "immediate medical attention" since he was experiencing"hypertensive crisis." Tim's had countless tests done on his heart over the past couple of years and never found anything suspect (praise the Lord) but when these things come up, it's hard to not treat them as emergencies. So he drove himself to the ER while I prayed he wouldn't have a heart attack on the way there. Two hours later and $150 poorer he was on his way home. Most people are in the ER for "gun shot wounds" or "trauma to the head" or "appendicitis." Tim was sent home with a paper that read "You have been diagnosed with diarrhea and abdominal (belly) pain." We laughed pretty hard about that.

Day 2 and the poop continues, at least for Jack. Ce la vie. This is parenting, folks.