Home with the Kids – Day Fourteen

As expected, Ádi got sick.

It's incredible how much children sense these emotional changes, though maybe it wasn't such a great idea to take the child to the hospital to see his mother. He probably caught something there, but what was I supposed to do? Not let his mother see the child on her birthday? Forget about it.

The bottom line is that Ádi got sick. I knew something was wrong because my son, who usually lived his days like a Tasmanian devil, was just sitting there, staring into space. He wasn't emptying my sock drawer, wasn't trying to dismantle the radiator, wasn't trying to break the kitchen tiles with anything, he had no interest in anything.

Strangely enough, what used to drive me crazy, and I would have given anything for him not to empty and dismantle everything, now seeing my son, I wished he would just empty everything.

Meanwhile, I brought Reni home from the hospital, and as we were driving home, I thought, okay, this "staying home with the child" thing wasn't easy before, but what in God's name am I going to do now with a sick child and my wife, who can barely move, can't lift, needs to rest, and even if she wanted to, couldn't take care of the child?

I feel like life is telling me now, "Well, my boy, you were too cocky, and you thought mothers have an easy life at home? Then show me what you've got and prove it."

The child had diarrhea the day before, but on this day, a fever of 38.9 also arrived. Ádi was listless all day, not crawling, not playing, not eating. I put him in my bed because our favorite game is for him to burrow under the covers and hide, and I find him, but nothing. He just lies there and does nothing.

It's a hell of a feeling when your child is sick. Until now, Ádi had avoided illnesses; if he ever had something, he recovered from it within a day, but he was never listless. Back then, I thought he'd be better by the next day, but he wasn't, because night came, and it got much worse.

Ádi went to bed at 7 PM. From then on, he woke up every two hours, and every time I went to him, I didn't just have to change him, but I literally had to wash the child because he had such severe diarrhea that it went all the way to his neck, not to mention his pajamas and sheets. Child into the sink under the tap, clean clothes, change his bedding, walk around with him to calm him down, into bed. This was the procedure. After the last one, I thought I'd give him some milk to see if he'd drink it.

He drank.

The child, lying in bed, starts drinking milk, and then a minute later, he throws up on himself, and pretty much everything within a 1-meter radius. After the usual cleaning procedure, I took the child's mattress, put it on the floor, and lay down next to him, because by then the child was completely exhausted.

That night, the child could only fall asleep if I lay next to him and something touched me. No matter how deeply the child slept, if I moved away from him, the child immediately woke up and started crying. It was damn uncomfortable to lie half on the floor, half on the small mattress, while maintaining constant contact with the child. I was also incredibly tired; anyone who follows the posts knows how exhausted I am already, but somehow I didn't find this burdensome. In fact, I think

I've never been this close to my son.

Then morning came. I thought I'd give him something to drink because he had diarrhea, he vomited during the night, he needed to drink. But he didn't want to drink.

And then, somewhere around quarter past six in the morning, I dressed the child and took him to the children's ward of Szent János Hospital, because I was afraid he would become dehydrated.

They examined the child and determined that he had caught some virus, so they would keep him and put him on an IV. I said that wouldn't work, because no matter how listless the child was, if a plastic tube was sticking out of him, he would certainly tear it out. "Well, then we'll tie him down, there's no other choice."

NO WAY, ABSOLUTELY NOT. There must be some other solution, to which the doctor said the child had to start drinking. Believe it or not, I started talking to Ádi, telling him, "My son, you have to start drinking, be a good boy, do it for Dad," things like that, and Ádi started drinking. First just a few sips, then a deciliter.

The doctor said it was good that he started drinking, but the child still had to be admitted, but not to worry because the parents could stay with the child. They brought Ádi a crib, he lay down, and I put him to sleep.

While Ádi was sleeping, I called my mother to come to the hospital for a bit to be with Ádi while I went home to pack my things so I could sleep here with the child. My mother, clearly having a heart attack on the other end of the phone, was there within 20 minutes.

I know I don't matter at all in this story right now, but by then I was really quite shaken. I was shaken physically, mentally, every way, because I had really been up all night and it looked like I would be up for another night, but this time at Szent János. I told my mother to stay here, I'd go home, sleep for 2 hours, and come back.

The doctor said if Ádi drank 1000-1200 ml of fluid, he could go home today, so we got a sheet of paper on which we had to write how much he drank.

Of course, Reni also came in the afternoon, although she wasn't well, but I think she would have gone in to see the child even if she had been on a ventilator.

Since the child drank and ate enough, didn't need an IV, didn't vomit, had no fever, and his diarrhea also subsided, we eventually brought him home in the evening.

I don't know if this whole motherhood thing is really that hard, or if we're just getting an extreme run of it now, but it's starting to become too much for me. I feel like I'm really running on fumes, completely depleting my reserves, because this isn't just about being at home with the child, taking him for walks in the afternoons, and keeping the apartment tidy anymore.

Here's the child, who requires as much care and attention as a child needs, and now he's sick too. Here's my wife, who also needs support, but honestly, I'm so exhausted that I simply don't have any energy left for her. Since Reni has been home, we've had one twenty-minute conversation touching on pretty deep topics, but other than that, we don't talk much. When I pass her, I hug her, give her a kiss, but I can't give her more than that right now, which I also experience as a kind of failure.

Reni is a smart woman. She always knows what to say or do to contribute to our family.

For example, this is the message she sent me. Sometimes, that's all it takes.