Can you tell just how thrilled she is to have me taking her picture? Just because Miranda hates it so much, I decided to do extra-large this time. She didn't look this good this weekend.
So everything looked like it was going well. Sam seemed back to normal, obsessed with my fat and my butt cheeks, laughing, chattering, incomprehensible... you name it. But seemingly happy.
It was Saturday. We'd taken Miranda to Janay's birthday/slumber party. Dropped her off. Gone to Abby's and ordered dinner. Eaten little and gone home. I really don't remember much after that. I think Sam, being under the weather, went to bed early. I stayed up and looked up crap on the internet and wrote, etc., etc., etc. Felt very productive. Didn't know it would be the last time in days.
Details don't really matter. I'd just taken a melatonin, after reading something long and absorbing, finishing the last Sookie Stackhouse book "Dead and Gone", and was sinking down into that delightful, heavy-limbed, comatose sleep, when the phone rang. Two rings and I leaped out of bed, cursing mentally, and waited for an explanation.
"Mom. Can you come pick me up? I'm puking!"
What can you say? No? I'm tired? Tough it out? No, you can't. Absolutely not.
"Give me a minute to get dressed and get your sister up."
Because, of course, that is part of the deal. Sam, the autistic, is asleep. Here is one of those crappy situations. I can leave her and there's a 99.999999% chance that she'll be perfect. There's also a chance that she'll over-react, leave the house, let your morbid imagination lead you to whatever conclusion you like. I couldn't leave her, just in case...At the very least, I'd hate to have her wake up and feel scared.
Sam was a bear. Thank God, Janay's house is close because our conversation went something like this:
Sam: "five three!" [this is a CD request and has little to do with the placement of the CD because her CDs take up all six slots in the player. She can't remember what she wants--just get your CDs out of there and pay attention. After all, everything is hers.]
[I try disc 5, song 3 and I get:]
Sam: five three! five four! five five! four five! five three! three four!!! three one!!!!, ...
It's dark. Because it's midnight. I kind of have night-blindness. I'm afraid of all the potential road-kill wandering the roads because I see a lot of it flattened during the day...So tired. So fed up with numbers being shouted at me. I'm trying to accommodate, but nothing is working and I'm having a stupid monologue that is attempting to be a dialogue with Sam, but she's not listening.
We get to Janay's. Janay's mom is behind the curtain and then outdoors, carrying Miranda's stuff. Soon several girls are outside in various states of undress--awkward, coltish, refreshing, innocently beautiful...and Sam is unbuckling...I have the back open and Sam is kind of shrieking and most displeased with me. I'm walking around the car to say hello to Janay's mom and relieve her of Miranda's stuff.
Sam: [shriek, shriek, shriek...}
me, to Janay's mom: Hi, never mind her [ I say, gesturing to Sam], I couldn't figure out what she wants to listen to and she's not happy with me.
Shelly, [Janay's mom]: I'm so sorry. I'm here by myself with the girls or I would have driven her home.
me: Don't worry about it. Sam will survive and you had no choice. No big deal. Sam will live.
Shelly: Yes, two other girls got sick. One was a vegetarian and decided to eat pork tonight...
me: Miranda didn't, did she?
Shelly: No.
me: I didn't think so. Miranda is usually so rigid about such things.
Shelly: Another girl didn't feel good and left earlier, too.
Miranda, looking absolutely pathetic and pale came out of the house.
Shelly: Did you remember your bag? [plastic shopping barf bag]
me: Oh, I was surprisingly smart and grabbed a bucket on the way out.
At that moment a big, beautiful, and completely comical raccoon came barreling across the road right in front of us and disappeared into the bushes. Made the trip something of a plus. Shelly told me it was the third one that night.
Sam was a little more pleasant on the ride home. Not much, but a little. Miranda started to get impatient with her, but I reminded her that Sam hadn't been feeling well and that I'd had to wake her from a dead sleep. Not that I was trying to make Miranda feel guilty. She always feels bad if people's plans have to change because of her.
Miranda: I would have tried to stay, Mom, honestly, but after the second time I puked I just wanted to come home.
me: Honey, of course. No one wants to be sick at someone else's house. Not to mention that the other girls and Shelly don't need to be around it. Of course you had to call me. It's no big deal. Sam'll survive even if it doesn't sound like it right now. [Because of course there were still intermittent squawks coming from Sam]
Sam continued this unpleasant squawking even after we got home. I told the dogs (in their crates) to shut up, just for good measure, and eventually just closed Sam's door on her. Moral of the story? When Sam's upset, she needs her space to calm herself down, because no one is going to jolly her out of it!
Don't think I was suddenly not tired, that that little outing had somehow helped to wake me up. The melatonin and lack of sleep from the previous two nights was calling to me. But it was not to be.
I'd helped Miranda to her bed and left her with her bucket. Then I returned to bed and was once again slipping into that deep, heavy-limbed slumber, when I heard Miranda using her bucket.
That poor kid sounds just like me--trying to turn her body inside out. Got up, emptied bucket, reassured her that I still loved her, wasn't mad, etc., etc.
Back to bed, back to sleep...I hear vomiting and rush down the hall only to find...that I must have been dreaming it. Miranda is fine for the moment. An hour, maybe two pass, and then I think, of course, THAT is what her puking sounds like, it was too quiet the time before. And I meet her in the bathroom and rinse out her bucket for her.
I won't describe each and every time. Suffice it to say, she wishes she hadn't eaten so much junk food, particularly tortilla chips with all the sharp edges. But once the food is gone and bile is all that is left, then the real misery begins.
This involuntary purging cycle continued into Sunday morning. Miranda lay limp on the couch and I just kept her company, watching programs off of our DVR list--most of them episodes of True Blood which we've seen repeatedly. I did minimal housework and no yard work. Sam was still under the weather a little, some more diarrhea in her case, but Sam only wants to be left alone when she doesn't feel well.
It seems like I've forgotten something completely abominable that the dogs did, but if so, that will make sense in a moment. Just thank your lucky stars that you are being spared one gross detail in what turns out to be a WEEKEND GROSS-ORAMA!
One of Sam's diarrhea moments required some bathroom clean-up and spot cleaning on the floor. OK. No big deal.
I'm on the phone with my friend Chris at about 7:00 or 7:30. Our phone calls take some arranging through email because of her schedule and my crazy home life. So we're chatting and catching up again and it's really pleasant. It's adult contact with someone I've known forever. I'm in the tiny room which still isn't a sewing room yet, just completely enjoying myself when Miranda yells weakly from the living room couch:
Mom! Sam's had an accident!
I apologized to Chris. Being a nurse and mother, she understands that some things can't wait. I knew before I reached my destination that this wasn't going to be a dumped plate of food or even a pee accident. However, I wanted to know how Miranda knew there'd been an accident when she'd been so sick she could barely move.
Miranda: Because I can smell it, Mom!
And so could I. OK. Not going to spare you now. Consider yourself spared because you didn't have to be here to help me clean it.
Sam had been on the far side of my bedroom, the far side from the bathroom, when that violent, diarrhea-urge to release hit her. It was foul. It was everywhere. It was on top of papers and coloring books, some on sheets, a huge pile (can a liquid constitute a pile?) next to the bed and then a long thick trail with splatters all the way into my bathroom.
I stared in horror and wondered how to even begin. Had Mick been here we might have just got an upholstery knife and cut out the carpet. Actually, I was glad he wasn't here because over-reacting doesn't help me in these situation. I can deal with grim and determined silence much better than swearing, lamenting to the heavens and all other manner of melodrama. However, an extra pair of hands is sometimes nice. Or someone to say, "hey, watch where you're stepping!" I had already walked into the middle of the room before realizing that I shouldn't have done that--adrift in a sea of nasty, liquid poop. It was on my bare feet.
In retrospect, I should have cleaned on my hands and knees first, but it had just seemed too overwhelming and inadequate. So I got out the carpet shampooer. And I went at it. Over and over. In grim and determined silence. That may turn out to be the title of my autobiography.
It looked much cleaner when I was done except for that one initial pile next to the bed. Still visible. Still malodorous. But now it was getting late. And Miranda was still sick. It was apparent that Sam was sicker than I'd realized and needed a bath/shower in a most desperate way. I certainly needed new bedding.
We got everyone as cleaned up as they were going to be that night and into bed. I decided in the morning I'd do the unthinkable and attack the carpet with bleach water. Now I only do this because this carpet is far beyond ever being presentable again, let alone attractive. We've had marker stains, food stains, makeup stains, glue, scorch marks, and more bodily fluids of multiple species than you want to know about. So what's a little bleach? What's a lot of bleach?
I went to sleep that night with the faint, lingering scent of diarrhea in my nostrils. And I slept well because I was exhausted.
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