The vacation so far.
We kept Bunny out of school for a couple of days before leaving for Hawaii last Thursday because she seemed to be coming down with something. She had a cough and was running a low-grade fever. On the day we left for Hawaii, she was feeling better and the plane ride over was uneventful until a tray table that she thought she had locked properly came crashing down on her nose as she was bending down to reach for her backpack.
She was sitting a couple of rows in front of me with her cousin and came to me crying. She rarely does that anymore, and so I scooped her up into my lap and rocked her like a baby while she shut her eyes, held her nose and sobbed. After a few minutes, she felt better and went back to her seat.
When we landed, I noticed she was looking a little wan, and at the Korean restaurant where we stopped for a quick dinner, I made her a little bed out of three pushed-together chairs and she feel asleep. The waitresses came over and clucked and fussed over her as only Korean waitresses will do, and found some towels with which to cover her. She didn't want to eat even when her favorite things were placed in front of her.
We finally arrived at my mom's and I threw the girls into the bath before changing them into jammies and putting them to bed. As I washed Bunny's face with a wash cloth, her nose started to bleed. After a few minutes it stopped. She has nose bleeds from time-to-time, so this wasn't unusual.
After baths, we all went to bed. Around 12.30 AM, I noticed that Bunny (who was sleeping next to me) was whimpering and thrashing about. She was burning up with fever so I went to get her some ibuprofin and a cool washcloth, when I came back into the room, her nose had erupted and was gushing blood like a river out of both nostrils. Needless to say, I freaked out. My mom and sister came in and 15 (no lie) washcloths and lots of minutes later, the bleeding wasn't stopping and her fever was hovering around 103 deg., so I made my mom call 911.
And they came. And they took us to the ER. I pinched the bridge of her nose while Bunny held giant maxi-pad-looking-thingies to her face and the paramedic put ice packs on her nose and head.
By the time we arrived in the ER, her nose was clotting but her fever was still high. She was dosed with Tylenol and then we settled in to wait for a doctor. I remembered that there was a Scarlet Fever exposure at Bunny's school (I know, wtf) so they swabbed her throat and x-rayed her lungs and just generally tried to ensure she didn't have anything nasty. Everything came back negative and Bunny drifted in and out of sleep in her blood covered nightgown while I chatted with the nurses and docs.
When we were finally being released around 5 AM, the doctor told me to watch her fever and that as long as she had one (which could be up to two weeks) she was contagious and certainly couldn't swim. I kept asking, "But what about her nose? The tray table? Is it broken? What should I do if it starts gushing again?" The doctor said it was fine and kept coming back to the fever. She laughed and said, "I'm trying to tell you about the fever and all you can talk about is her nose. Don't worry about her nose. Treat it gently--don't let her dig around in it or pick it. It's the fever that is most important." That made me feel better, but also? Didn't.
Bunny pretty much slept all day Friday. She woke up to eat a few teaspoons of the rice porridge my mom made her then went back to sleep. Worried about dehydration, I kept waking her to drink water.
I didn't get much sleep the night before so I went to bed around 10 o'clock last night hoping and praying that Bunny wouldn't get another nose bleed. Having slept all day, Bunny was finally up watching Korean soaps with my mom and her cousins. I told my moms to send her back to bed in a hour. About an hour after I fell into a dead sleep, her cousin woke me up to tell me Bunny's nose was bleeding again. She blew it gently and it started gushing. This time we knew what to do and after 10 minutes the bleeding stopped. She was tired again, and went right to sleep but I couldn't sleep (again) because I was so worried about her. I put some un-petroleum jelly in her nose and watched her sleep. I eventually fell asleep, too. She woke up around 1AM with a fever spike so I gave her some Tylenol and sponged with a damp washcloth until her fever went down.
I finally feel asleep and then Wallie was up at 4:45AM having gone to bed at 3 in the afternoon the day before. She went down for a nap and slept through the night. She was pissed off when she woke up. Her little face was right next to my head going, "You told me it was just a nap. You didn't say I had to sleep all night." She colored for awhile then watched a movie on the iPod and I went back to bed figured someone else would be up soon. The other cousins started stirring around 6:30 AM and Bunny got up, too. I slept until around 8:30 then got up to check on Bunny.
Feverish. Again. This morning my bro and sis took all the kids to the farmer's market then the beach. Poor Bunny had to stay home and she was so sad. She wants so badly to go and play and swim but she can't. Meanwhile, Miss Wallie is having a fantastic time. She's not in anyone's shadow and gets her cousins all to herself.
When you have kids, no one prepares you that these are the times that will be the hardest. No one can explain staying awake for almost two days (or a week when Bunny was first born and in the NICU and then three more weeks when she was home and not eating) on sheer adrenaline and worry. No one can tell you that you'll see gushing blood and a feverishly shaking body and you'll be willing to do just about anything to make it stop even call 911 so people more adept at handling things than you will come and make it better. No one tells you that when your child's little body hurts, your body will hurt too but in different ways: in the tight shoulders, aching head, upset stomach, and jaws clenching with worry.
It's cliche, but I don't the think a child ever knows what a parent endures until they have children of their own. I understand so much more now that I am a parent. Being a parent is joyous--and I wouldn't trade it for anything--but it can also be incredibly painful. I'm only six years in and I know there will be more joy and more pain ahead. If anyone had showed me this before having kids, I might have changed my mind about it. Almost.
Saturday. Two days into our nine day vacation and Bunny is napping again. I need to figure out how to get her to eat something when she wakes up. The other thing no one tells you is that when your child is sick you will prepare rice porridge and homemade chicken broth with dates and herbs (or Tata will) and rice and yogurt with honey and banana and tea and Smart water (chilled and room temp) in the hopes that your child will eat or drink some of it, any of it. And when they don't you will consider popsicles or mango or pasta with butter and cheese and will try again. No one will tell you that a six-year-old will refuse it all and you will let her even though you are 33 years older and an adult. You will cajole and explain and bribe and she won't give in and you will give up.
So she sleeps, windows cast open and trade winds breezing in, and I wait and whisper for her to get better. Because Hawaii just isn't the same without my little, beautiful, bronzed island girl to share it with.
P.S. By the way, that Oxy-Clean liquid? Works miracles. My mom's white washcloths and towels are sparkling and no longer look like they were used to clean up a crime scene.
