Poor Gwen! Sometime after midnight last night, the dreaded traveler’s tummy hit her hard. I became aware during the 3’o’clock hour, when I awoke from a dream about working with people who had TB… there was a lot of coughing in the dream and it took me a few minutes after waking up to realize that I was actually hearing Gwen in the bathroom. The rest of the night was awake to fetch towels and water and cool rags while poor Gwen poured everything into the hall bath.
Valerie came by this morning for our meeting. Paul is still working on her computer and with all the help we needed this morning with the kids, wasn’t able to finish all the necessary tasks. (Not that he would have been able to finish it all even if he hadn’t had to help out with the kids.) But it ended up being very fun to watch him with Clare: she adores him. He has a special “bouncy baby” song he sings to her while dancing a particular dance that, try as I have, I cannot create. So far, 2 out of 2 babies (Will and Clare) report glowing reviews of Paul’s baby technique.
Morning chaos aside, Valerie and I managed to have a productive meeting — consistent with our general time together. Not that we progressed a ton on my dissertation plan, but we needed to touch base before she left (she is now en-route to the States and from there will continue to Mozambique for a MEASURE project). She also came up and checked out Gwen. Her advice, as both a Peruvian and a person very experienced in diarrheal illness, was to go to a clinic and get an IV. Her argument was convincing and her offer of a ride to the Clinic generous — within a few minutes, Gwen, Clare, and I piled into the truck and headed off.
Clinica Anglo Americana was very nice. Not as many english speakers as I thought there would be, but the staff was attentive and pleasant. Gwen was in a bed within 15 minutes of arrival and a doctor saw her within 10 minutes of us being in the room. Most of our waiting involved the staff finding an english-speaking physician (who came over from the pediatric ward) — not because we weren’t able to communicate per se, but because we wanted to be very clear on our expectations and what they were requesting in terms of labs and tests. The bottom line is that they pumped her up with a liter of fluids via IV and I got her to down two bottles of water, a few saltines, and the first of three pills from her US-supplied Z-pack. She was still dehydrated and the staff wanted to give her another liter of fluids, but Gwen was really set on getting out of the clinic (it is difficult to be in a medical setting with an infant and I think the strain was hard on her) so she insisted on leaving and I promised the doctor a continued push of ORS fluids from home. The last doctor we saw was very nice — I regret not getting his name. He spoke some english and I really liked his manner; he was very respectful of Gwen’s desire to leave and was quite thorough in his discharge instructions.
Clare and I bonded while Gwen rested. We roamed the halls for just under an hour — she was so tired but remained a trooper! As a general rule, she was fine as long as I didn’t sit down. Carrying her around for so long taught me that Will has seriously made an impact on my stationary muscles… he’s a bit over 30 pounds now and compared to that, Clare is a feather. My back isn’t particularly happy with me (I have to carry her a bit funny to accomodate my belly) but we managed. Murphy’s Law: when I finally got her to sleep, a crying child woke her up and she had a meltdown. I had to bring her to Gwen to nurse her to sleep and then poor Clare just sort of wound down into a heavy slumber. They both slept soundly, both at the clinic, and then after arriving at home, sometime around 2:30.
Paul won Daddy-Husband awards for both cleaning the hall bath while we were at the clinic and for taking Will to the park to keep the house quiet once we got back. We ordered pizza for dinner (Papa John’s — it was worth the relative splurge and made tonight so much easier on us). Paul and I got Will to bed, I finished up some laundry, packed up Gwen and Clare’s things, confirmed their morning taxi, and am now about to join Paul in bed.
I’m bummed that Gwen and Clare have to leave on a down note with so much more left to explore. Next trip! Except next time, we’ll have Mario, and having another Daddy around makes all the difference in the world!
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