It was 2am on Friday as we packed up our car got our baby snuggled into his car seat with a warm blanket and headed out to Dallas to catch our first flight of our summer trip. Once we got on the high way we drove for 35 min before seeing another car on the road, just us and the semi-trucks. We got to the terminal in plenty of time and Ben did great on the airplane!
Our first stop, Burlington, Vermont to visit with Joe's mom & step-dad. I finally got to see the town that Joe went to high school in and see his old room. Ben made friends with their cat, Charlie right away. That night his mom fixed us steaks to celebrate Joe passing his classes and enjoyed some time sifting through a memory box she kept for Joe. He had some pretty funny hair-do's back when he was a little tike.
Saturday came and we were going to get mother's day pedicures, but the car was messed up. So instead we made some yummy breakfast while Ben napped and the boys piled sand bags around the back of the house (they had record breaking floods this month). After breakfast (around 10:45) I took my first anti-Malaria pill. At 11 I started feeling sick, 12:30 I was having some serious pain in my stomach and at 1 I started vomiting.
Joe's parents planned a barbecue so that friends of the family could say hello to Joe and meet Ben and I. So, people were showing up around 3, and by this time I was lying on the floor in his parents room which is just across the hall from the bathroom. One of his mom's friends does Reiki and asked if she could work with me. I didn't know much about it so I just said it was ok. She started by praying to mother & father god. So I instantly started to pray too, to the real God. I prayed that He be glorified somehow through this even if it is by me getting worse. She did calm me down with her gentle voice and soft touch and I did get worse. I got feverish, I had cold chills, I could not keep anything down, and I was starting to get dehydrated. By 8pm I could not take the pain and the dry heaving anymore and Joe took me to the emergency room.
At the emergency room I was hooked up to an IV and given medicine for nausea, a bag of saline, and some anti-inflamitories for the pain. I was also ordered to stop taking the medication. So I am going to Africa with just bug spray and garlic pills for mosquito protection. I felt a whole lot better by the time the bag was emptied. By the time they discharged me I was starting to feel a bit sick again. They sent me home with 2 more Nausea pills and I took one when we got back to his parents. I drank a big glass of gatorade and had a couple bites of a bagel.
While we were gone Ben had 3 huge fits and had refused to eat a bottle. He had calmed down and was a sleep when we got back, so I waited until after I got settled before I took him from Grandma. He was so happy that Joe and I were home and he slept in-between us all night. I threw up 2 more times in the middle of the night and I was still pretty uneasy all Sunday.
At about 3am Joe woke up feeling nauseous and couldn't go back to sleep until about 6. He slept almost all day Sunday. So my first Mother's day was a recovery day for us.
Monday we woke up early had some coffee, packed up the car, and drove back to the airport. It was a short hour and 20 min flight to New York. We got picked up by a driver and he took us to Pearl River where AIM's United States headquarters is. We had cold hamburgers and freezer-burned fries for lunch and I was still feeling a bit sick. After lunch our other team member Gregg showed up and had a tour of the facility and met the people we have been coordinating with through phone and emails. The facility here is beautiful and our room has a crib in it for Ben! The people are pleasant and they lent us the community car to drive to Target to get a couple things we forgot to pack.
Tomorrow is our first day of Orientation and training. It is going to be a very busy day. Ben is going to be in the nursery so we are not distracted from important information. Hopefully he does not give the care taker too much trouble.
Ok, time for sleep.
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