May 19, 2010 - What should have been Alesha Day :-(

It is 3:30 a.m. and I wake up and have a very upset stomach.  I am thinking to myself I will just go back to sleep and when I wake up again I will feel fine.  As I lay there trying to disregard the extreme stomach cramps I notice that it is absolutely silent.  For the first time since I have arrived in India I am not hearing cars, dogs barking, excessive horn honking, chattering of voices, etc.  NOTHING, just silence.  It was really bizarre.

Just as I am starting to fall back to sleep, our youngest son, Luke, enters the room and says "Mom, I don't feel very good at all and I think I am going to throw-up".  As I try to comprehend what I just heard, Luke rushes into the bathroom and proceeds to puke!  I am in total denial!!!  This is NOT happening.  This must all be a BAD dream!  Today is Alesha day, the day we have longed for for over 2 1/2 years.  Surely this will all pass and we can stick to the plan.

When I go and comfort Luke I realize that I am NOT in good shape either.  Let's just say that the beginning of excessive diarrhea was upon me and it had NO intentions of letting up.  Luke, continues to puke about every hour.  Darin, thankfully is feeling fine and we wait for Martin to wake up and see how he feels.  At about 7:30 Martin, awakes and says I feel fine, what a relief!  Darin and Martin decide that they are going to go downstairs to the amazing breakfast buffet and Luke and I will stay in the room and pray that this passes quickly.  Right before the boys head downstairs, I look at Martin, who is sitting on a chair, and he turns white as a sheet and says "I don't feel so good."  This is where the real nightmare begins.  He runs to the bathroom and when I enter to check on him this is what I see -

My poor son was sitting on the toilet in tears.  The poor guy had diarrhea and is vomiting at the same time!!!  As I entered the bathroom I was in shock to say the least! I stood there and was in complete denial at first, but the smell and sights quickly brought me back to reality!  I burst in to tears and was laughing all at the same time. It is hard to put into words all that I was feeling at this point.....you can only imagine..... This CANNOT be happening!!!!  This is Alesha Day, we have to go and pick up our little princess today and I have two VERY sick children and I feel horrible!  This is NOT how I had invisioned this day.

I proceed to clean up the disaster that is before me and try to get everybody situated the best I can so we can decide what we are going to do.  We were scheduled to pick Alesha up at 3:30 and at this point I can tell that this is no longer a possibility.  I ask Darin, to call my mom and ask for prayer.  He had to call, because there was no way that I was going to be able to carry on a conversation without bursting into tears the second I heard my mom's voice.  We then called, Tami, to ask how we go about rescheduling the pick-up day of Alesha.  She said it shouldn't be a problem, just call Ms. Roy and tell her the situation and we should be able to pick her up the following day.  If there was a problem, just call her back and she would help us arrange it.  Darin contacts Ms. Roy and explains everything and she said it was fine to come tomorrow instead.  This was a relief!  My main concern at this point was getting my boys well and finding out what they have.  I did not want to arrive at the orphanage with anything contagious.  While all this is taking place, Luke and Martin are continuing to vomit simultaneously as my diarrhea is relentless!  Thank GOD we had a room with 2 bathrooms!!

The boys and I tried to get some rest as Darin went down stairs to explain the situation to the front desk, cancel our driver for that day, reschedule a driver for the following day, etc.  He was told that they have an on-call doctor for the hotel so if we needed that service, to let them know.  Darin also walked to a small shop down the street to purchase multiple bottles of water as we needed to keep hydrated and he needed a break from all of the sickness.  I could not be more grateful that Darin did not get sick during this ordeal.  I cannot imagine how this would have turned out if we were all down for the count.

One word - MISERABLE!

Laying there in bed I was literally begging God to heal by children.  Martin's stomach hurt so bad that you couldn't even touch his stomach without him crying out in pain.  He just layed there and moaned in agony.  It was so heartbreaking.  While Darin was gone the housekeepers came to the room to bring more toilet paper, towels, change the bedding and see if we were okay.  The one housekeeper was so sweet as she was speaking to me Luke rushed to the bathroom to puke and as he heaved over the toilet she squatted down next to him and  rubbed his back. She told me call the doctor, call the doctor.  I said my husband will when he returns.  She was VERY concerned and felt really bad for our situation.  When Darin returned I told him we were taking a bigger turn for the worse and we need the doctor to come ASAP.  He called the front desk and got it all arranged.  The doctor could not arrive until 7:00 that evening.  The wait for his arrival was brutal.

When the doctor arrived he was so quiet and had a very calming personality.  He asked all the pertinent questions and then examined me, Luke, then Martin.  My diagnosis, acute gastroenteritis and dehydration, Martin, the same, and Luke, acute gastroenteritis and SEVERE dehydration.  He took one look at the color of Luke's tongue and he got very serious and said that he must drink LOTS of water the rest of the night or he will have to be hospitalized!  The problem was Luke was drinking water, but he was throwing up so much it wasn't doing much good.  He made it VERY clear to Luke that if he didn't continue to drink and do what we said he would have to get an IV at the hospital.  Luke, has had experience with an IV and that made him gag down the water even though he didn't want to.  When the doctor examined Martin, he touched his stomach and Martin flinched. The doctor asked if he was ticklish.  Martin, said no, it just hurts so bad you can't even lightly touch my stomach.  The doctor thought this was strange.  After the examines he wrote out a diagnosis on his letter head for each of us with a list of medicines that needed to be taken for the next 5 days.  We confirmed with him that we did not have anything contagious and that we would be fine to go to the orphanage to pick up Alesha the following day  He said that would be fine if we were feeling up to it.  We thanked him and paid him for his services, which was little of nothing for having a doctor come to you and examine 3 people.  Before he left he told Darin that the pharmacy was right around the corner and they would be open and have all the medicine that were listed. Darin followed the doctor downstairs and as Darin headed past the front desk he overheard the doctor giving a report to the front desk clerk, and said that "he was really concerned about the little one and that if he doesn't drink a lot he will end up in the hospital!"  He was definitely concerned about our Luke :-(

After a little bit Darin returned with all the medicines for his family.  Thankfully, medicine is cheap in India. 

This is the line up of the meds we had to take.  What you see if one to stop the vomiting, one to kill off the bad stuff making us sick, and another one to rebuild the good stuff to make us well.

I can tell you that these medicines were the WORST tasting medicines I have every had.  It was pure torture trying to get the boys to drink these without gagging and throwing up even more.  We had a long night ahead of us.  After the first couple doses we had a system of Darin holding their nose while they chugged the nasty liquid down as quickly as they could.  It seemed to help if they were not able to smell the stench of the meds.  You have to do what you have to do.


***Side note - We still do not know what caused us to get SO sick.  Our entire family ate the exact same thing  while in Kolkata and Darin never got sick.  Whatever it was appeared to affect the kids much worse than the adults.***  

While laying there reflecting on this horrific day we had I began to pray.  I was sure that we were supposed to bring the boys with us to India to bring their sister home.  One of my greatest fears of bringing them was that they would get sick and here we are sicker than anything.  Going to the orphanage together as a family of 4 and leaving as a family of 5 was to be the highlight of our trip.  Having the boys there to see and experience the city that their sister comes from, seeing the orphanage that their sister lived in until we could bring her home, meeting the Ayahs that took care of their sister, etc.  All of these things at this point might not happen.  The thought of not going to the orphanage tomorrow was more than I could handle.  I began to beg God for his healing touch upon my family and a restful night sleep.  I prayed that we would be well to go to the orphanage as a family of 4 to meet Alesha for the first time.  I began to thank God that we were in a safe place, in a hotel that had a doctor available to assist us, medicine readily available and for a cheap price, and a husband who could manage all these details and care for his sick wife and boys.  I was also thankful that I had budged that extra day in Kolkata.  That entire extra day was supposed to be spent bonding with Alesha before we put her on a plane back to Delhi, but now that day allowed us to get well enough to pick her up without having to rearrange our entire itinerary.  As I drifted off to sleep I was thankful that tomorrow was a new day, it couldn't be much worse than what we experienced today and I hoped that it would be a day filled with joy as we bring Alesha into our arms forever.