Four Days Without Sleep

The last four days of our trip to Utah were filled with completely sleepless nights as poor Evan suffered through some soft of awful virus. I came down with the bug first, feeling a little under the weather on Christmas Eve. So much so that I passed on dessert and I have felt badly about not getting a piece of my mom's pumpkin pie ever since.

Evan started showing signs of it on Christmas morning. He would just sit and watch t.v., which he never does. On Christmas Day we drove from my parents' house to my in-laws' house. The first night at their house was a little rough, but the second night was completely miserable. Evan woke up around 10:00 SCREAMING. All caps don't do justice to how horrible the screaming was. At one point I decided he must be possessed. I even held him up to a mirror to make sure I could still see a normal reflection (I watch too many scary movies). Evan rarely cries and I'd never seen him scream like that. He finally fell asleep in our bed, but he really was scaring me. He woke up every hour or so and threw up once all over me, the bed and his beloved Taggie bear. I rinsed Tag off, but he needed a full spin in the washing machine before I could let Evan snuggle him again, which made the rest of the night even harder.

The next morning we took him to an urgent care clinic. The doctor diagnosed him with a virus of some sort and sent us home. A lot of help that was. The third night was even worse than the second and we found ourselves driving around until 2:30 in the morning trying to calm Evan down. Being sick at home is hard enough, but being sick at someone else's house is even worse. I felt awful knowing we were keeping four other adults, another toddler and a baby awake. I tried thinking of somewhere we could go, but the list of people who wouldn't mind us showing up in the middle of the night with a screaming toddler is limited. I settled on my friend Sandy and was about to call her when I decided I should let her get a good night's rest. We contemplated going to a hotel, but neither Bryan nor I really wanted to pack up in the middle of the night. I think Evan was just so stuffy that he'd try to breathe and when he couldn't, he'd panic. That panic resulted in the screams. Those screams turned into frustration on mine and Bryan's parts.

Our last night in Utah went a little better. I invested in a humidifier and every version of a Vick's product I could find, which seemed to help. We had all been staying in the same room, so Bryan and I finally decided we should take the couches and leave Evan in the bedroom to minimize how much we were disturbing Evan. We at least had a few hours of sleep in us before the crying started.

We got up around 4:00 and were off to the airport by 5:30. Those many sleepless nights meant Evan slept the whole way home and he even did 12 hours in his bed last night. All I can say is thank you. I needed the rest. My cold has continued to get worse, but luckily Evan's has gotten better. I think he is just about back to normal. I hope. So, that is how we spent the last part of our trip and why we didn't get to do all the things we had saved to the end, like more visits with friends and family in Salt Lake.

We're happy to be home, but we definitely enjoyed our marathon trip to Utah. I didn't intend to take a vacation from blogging, but it just worked out that way. I have lots of pictures to post and stories to tell! I'll be posting in between sniffles to make up for lost time.