Over here, we have a long weekend over Easter, meaning, the Monday after Good Friday is also a public holiday for us. What more, it is school holidays for all the students too. Calvin is off school for a good 2 weeks.
We had several activities lined up over the Easter long weekend — one of which was a birthday party and the other was a dinner invitation. We did not make it to either activities. Calvin was sick.
The boy started to throw up at around 2.30am on Saturday morning. Not only did he throw up, he also complained of a headache. He looked really sick. The vomiting was happening at every half hour which meant he was not able to keep any liquid down and that also meant that he could not sleep at all. I suspected he had gastro, but the headache made things a little more worrying. I rang a health line and was advised to bring Calvin to see a doctor if his vomiting did not stop within 4 hours. It did not. So I took the boy to the children’s hospital at 6.30am while Robin stayed home with Athan.
Again (Calvin went to the hospital before when he was younger due a dislocated elbow), the hospital staff impressed us with both their skills and care. They are really really good at what they do. Anyway, the doctor confirmed that Calvin had gastro. He then started Calvin on gastrolyte drink (green) every 10 minutes and I had to record if he vomited etc. Calvin hated the drink and he was still throwing up every half hour. He was so tired but could not sleep. Poor boy. I was relieved in some ways, to know that it was gastro he had, not something about his head! Apparently, the headache was due to dehydration. And, we were told that the hospital has already seen numerous cases of gastro! The bug had come early this year.
More and more kids turned up at the hospital with different problems as the time passed by, and it was really noisy. Calvin requested to go home and the doctor agreed. We went home after spending about 2 hours at the hospital. The interesting thing was that Calvin remembered we were supposed to go to a birthday party that morning and he said he wanted to go! And, he said he won’t eat too much so that he won’t puke! How innocent.
Anyway. The vomiting stopped by late afternoon on Saturday and he had no other symptoms. Thank God! Mr Athan seemed to have been spared from the bug for now. Gastro (gastroenteritis) is a very common childhood illness and it is very contagious. We tried to keep Calvin away from other kids and his brother for a few days, and so we were stuck at home the whole long weekend.