Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Rehearsal Dinner

A few months back my girls were asked to be flower girls in a wedding for a couple of our friends, Courtney and Mark. ( Hi guys!! They are avid readers of this blog and I hope they are enjoying their honeymoon right now.)  The girls were thrilled to be in a wedding and they've been counting down the months, then the weeks.  Two weeks ago, they started counting down the days until this past Saturday.  They couldn't wait.  I was also counting down the weeks and the days for something else to happen.  Then it did.  At 4am on Friday morning, the day we were to drive to Santa Barbara for the wedding rehearsal,  I woke up to Georgia standing next to my bed whining,

"Mooommmyy...I don't feel good.  I'm dizzy!"

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!  SHIT, SHIT, SHIIIIIIT!!!

Yes, this is yet ANOTHER post about that poor kid's migraines.  Sorry. I know I mention it every what- oh 7-9 weeks, but when it disrupts your life like this, it makes for good writing.

She was getting her migraines every seven weeks, like clockwork, for  ten months.  Then, the doctor put her on new medication this summer and the time extended to eight weeks in August.  This time she got it in the ninth week.  Of course it happened to be at the worst time possible.  Why not, right?  It's happened before.

Whenever she comes into my room, and says she's dizzy, I think "maybe this will go away if she sleeps some more."  It never does, but none the less I put her next to me in bed encouraging her to sleep.  She did for a couple hours only to wake up and "frow up" in the bucket.  I tried giving her Benadryl, because her doctor said sometimes that can help the nausea and vertigo.  Unfortunately, that dose of medicine immediately left her body.  So I did the only thing I could do, let her sleep and throw up for the next five hours, while I finished getting us ready to leave for the weekend.

The good news was, the wedding was the next day and hopefully she'd be better by then.  The bad news was, we had a two hour car ride, a wedding rehearsal and dinner to go to that day.

By the time we were supposed to leave she was still getting sick.  So I packed up a Tupperware container and a bucket to make sure puke didn't end up in my van or her carseat.  She slept on and off most of the way up, got sick a couple of times, but by the time we got to the hotel it was almost completely done.  She was acting more like herself and hadn't mentioned being dizzy in a while.  I thought we were out of the woods.  We were good to go!  The worst was over!!  I'm a mom, I should know better.

This migraine thing is constantly changing in her.  Much like a baby's sleep pattern.  Just when you get used to them taking two naps, they decide to move to one.  The migraine does the same thing, just when I think I have it figured out it changes.  It used to be it would last half a day, she would come out of it, but then it would come back the next morning.  The last two times, however, it is bad for half the day.  Then she kinda comes out of it, but gets dizzy on and off the rest of the day.  BUT it is only for ONE day. Which is kinda better.  Except for this day.

We went to the rehearsal and she was fine for most of it.  She learned what she was supposed to do, but toward the end she got dizzy again and I had to hold her until it was time to leave.  Good thing I still had a bucket in the car!  We got back to the hotel and she threw up again.  Then she was immediately better and hungry.  Poor kid kept bringing everything back up that she put in her body.  I gave her some apples, and they stayed down.  It was over... we were good?  I wasn't trusting it.  Stupid sneaky migraine.  By the time we were leaving for the dinner, I knew better than to think this was completely over.  I grabbed a little Ziploc baggie, knowing I couldn't walk around with a bucket at the dinner.  Well,  I guess I could, but people might talk. I stuck the little baggie in my purse.  

Georgia was great for a while.  She scarfed down some pizza and other appetizers.  Except by the time we were to sit down at dinner, her vertigo was back.  I spent most of the dinner walking in and out.  We would go outside to sit and get some air, she would feel better, we would go back inside.  This happened at least three times, once we even went to the bathroom when she claimed she was going to "frow up", but she never got sick.   

 The last time it happened was at the end of dinner.  I told Andy we needed to leave in five minutes, as she sat on my lap with her head on my chest and her eyes closed.  He looked at her and agreed.  Then Courtney and Mark came over to talk to me.  Courtney asked about Georgia, and I told her she  had a migraine all day, which is what she had suspected.  She has suffered from them herself since she was a child, so she recognized the signs.

Then as we were talking, Georgia picked her head up and looked at me with THAT look.  (Fair warning-if you're eating put down that sandwich right about now.)

"Mommy, I gonna frow...."

And then, yup.  She did indeed throw up all over me.  It went down my shirt and pooled in my bra.  I know, super gross.  Unlike the rest of the throw up all day, this was one was for real.  Most of the other times, she had nothing in her stomach so after a while it is just harmless oderless bile.  Not this one!  NOPE!!  She had been eating pizza, so I will just let you imagine what that smell was like.  BLECH!  YUCK! GROSS!  Sorry, sorry sorry!!

Earlier in the night I had taken out the Ziploc baggie I had brought with me out of my purse.  I didn't have any pockets, so at one point I just stuck it inside my bra to have it if  I needed it quickly.  So as she was getting sick on me, I discreetly took the baggie out of my bra, opened it and let her finish getting sick into there.  So at least it wasn't ALL on me.

Courtney tried to help clean me up, Andy ran over and disposed of the baggie o puke and I sat there looking around to see who might have caught the incident.  Most people were already up and out of their seats milling about, so luckily we didn't have a big audience.  But the smell was, well, it was throw up.  So we did the only thing we could do.  We left without saying goodbye to anyone.  We would see them the next day at the wedding, after all, and I promise at that point, nobody would have wanted to come near me anyway. 

On the ride back to the hotel Andy and I were talking about how fun it was having our child throw up at a wedding rehearsal dinner.  Then he looks at me and says,

"Where did the baggie come from??"

I shrugged and said, "My bra."

He looked at me questioningly.

"What?" I said. "I'm a mom!  Always gotta be prepared, baby!"


Fortunately, that was the last time Georgia got sick.   We went back to the hotel and took a shower, and then I got acquainted with Marriott's laundry room.  I was so happy they had one.  I did not want THOSE clothes sitting around all weekend.


Happy ending to this part of the story though, the next day, the wedding day, Georgia claimed to be dizzy only twice in the morning.  However, all her food stayed down and she was great all day.  The wedding was....well, I will wait until the next post to tell you about that.  All I can promise you is that it was a  day entirely throw up free!

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