We're home

We're all home tonight. Praise the Lord! Matthew looked great after a long afternoon nap and the doctor said that if he ate an okay supper, he could go home. Rob basically fed him his supper so that he would eat it...he's just so weak at times. He did great. I also picked up a Propel water for him, which he loves, and he has had quite a bit of it. The nurse was a bit nervous about it, so she called the doctor and he said that it was perfect. I only have one complaint about the whole time we were there, and that is that the only electrolyte/rehydrating drink they had was unflavored Pedialyte. Yuck. He's very weak and skinny, so right now we just need to build up his strength, push the fluids, and reteach him to use the potty. I think now that we're home, he'll be more likely to try to make it. He wants his underwear back!

Ben ran a fever for most of the afternoon, ranging from 99.5-102. I gave him some medicine when we got home, so that should break the fever. He has had lots of popsicles and Gatorade today, so I'm not too worried that he'll end up like Matthew. He's having LOTS of loose stool, but so did Matthew on day two, so I know it should ease up. Ben scared us at the hospital when he tried to get off the couch and slipped. He fell and didn't do more than scare himself, but I hollered and two nurses shot in there. I must say, they had pretty good reaction times!

I'm doing better than I was at the time of the last post. I had my cry and I'm okay. The Lord reminded me of the verse "Jesus wept." Why was he weeping? Because his friend had died. It didn't matter that he would raise his friend from the dead, the man had still suffered and died. Part of being human is releasing our emotions by crying, and being fully human yet perfect, Jesus cried. So it was okay for me to cry, too :)

I did run into the head of our Ladies Missionary Fellowship and told her what was going on. She's going to arrange some help for me over the next week while I nurse the boys back to health. She's even going to find someone to stay with them while I go to a prenatal appointment on Wednesday. We're planning to keep them quaranteened at least until the diarrehea goes away. From what I've read about it and heard about this virus, they need to stay home for a couple of weeks. I've also read that it's nearly impossible to keep children from getting it and that all kids under the age of five get it. Around 500,000 ER visits per year are related to this virus. Crazy!

And here's your "funny" story from the hospital: Matthew was napping and the rest of us were resting when a nurse in surgery gear popped into the room. She took a long look at Matthew and said, "Hmm...she's not having her appendix out, is she?" I replied, "Um, this is a he and no, he's not." She mumbled something, said that Ben looked tired, and then left. Apparantly, she overshot the right room by one. We saw them wheeling away a girl later who was much older than Matthew. Rob and I just had to shake our heads!

Good-night!