!Care --- agk's diary 7 March 2023 @ 07:04 UTC --- written on GPD Win 1 in bed with sick Evy and ginger tea --- We got food poisoning, a stomach flu, or something. I was on the child unit, on hold with pharmacies in the small out-of-the-way city one of my discharged kids went home to. A production issue caused short- age of methamphetamines. His family's pharmacy couldn't fill his prescriptions. I was trying to find a pharmacy that was holding. I couldn't concentrate. I'd felt increasingly awful for hours. Nausea, hot-and-cold, brain foggy strug- gling to dial numbers, hyperfocusing, cramping. "Eum, just 11 hours work on 2 hours sleep," I thought. "I'll feel better if Amy lets me kick her the discharge for after she finishes med pass. I hate to shirk, his family's been here an hour, but I'll actually take my break today & feel better." My body evacuated everything. I puked 3 times by the employee entrance. I somehow made it the hour drive home. Somehow there was more in me to fill my home toilets. I knew I was dehydrated but I could barely change position in bed I felt so awful. Of course 4 hours after I puked in the bushes, Evy was bent over our toilet, first daughter was shirt- less in her room scream-crying, and I was nurse to all 3 us. I had to move slow. My brain was cooked. But there's a certain pleasure in doing skilled care without the high volume industrial assembly line of the hospital, 1 or 2 nurses to 18 patients. Evy wanted a salty broth. It made her feel worse when I brought it. Its hypertonicity pulled fluids out of her already dehydrated body through her sto- mach/duodenum. She agreed to a better rehydration solution. While she shivered in a hot bath I held first daughter to my warm skin wrapped in a warm blanket, clothed her back, changed her barely-wet diaper. I'd brought the right things, despite my cognitive deficits. Habit and heuristics worked in my favor. She was borderline no longer cold. Clothed, cuddled and blanket-swaddled she quieted. I spooned plain yogurt in the hungry, sleepy mouth of my girl who can almost ride a bike. Heat, comfort, fluids, nourishment. I was able to slowly settle her to sleep. Applesauce, babyfood for me. Easiest of the nausea BRAT (bananas rice applesauce toast) snacks for me to get. More oral fluids, carefully, while I heated water, brewed a pot of ginger-mint tea for Evy. Re- hydration takes more fluids than you think: a pot, not a cup. Her first cup I fixed like an IV bag: enough honey and a tiny pinch of salt to transport fluids across her stomach lining instead of the bowel where they ordinarily absorb. So she'd get hydrated quick even if she vomited. A little lemon for the acidity and potassium, a touch of black pepper to quiet overstimulated stomach nerves. Education, coaching. What she knows when well she forgets in the viscerality of sickness. "This first cup's your IV fluids. Mouth's nicer than vein. Drink before sleep or I'll wake you." It's called forcing fluids. I got her night clothes back on. She came back to me as the fluids worked. Dehydra- tion shifts fluid around your body following salts. That distresses the brain. I peed a little, dark and scanty. My rehydration was working. She hasn't peed yet but she's sleeping quietly after two cups. Baby's sleeping quietly. Time for me to sleep quietly. Boxes checked: warm, hydrated-ish, metabolizing calories, irritation soothed, clean, resting. Sick or not, my family's cared for. I can rest, and smile.