A Scary First Halloween

T Junior, the kitty, with the AJ, Annie
and Lucy a couple of days ago.

I'm not the type that likes to be scared. I don't like horror films; I'm not crazy about suspense films even. I do love Halloween, though, but mostly for the dressing up and the candy, not the scary stuff.

But...this Halloween was scary. Not good scary like a lot of people enjoy. Scary scary. Frightening. Heart-poundingly horrible. OK, you get the idea.

T Junior was hospitalized on the 30th.

At first, we didn't know why. I mean, it was obvious he was sick. He had a low-grade fever, he was lethargic, whimpering and he had lots and lots of "the big D," as one friend referred to it. But nobody knew why he was sick. The nurses suspected rotavirus, a common infection among kids -- especially those who attend any amount of day care.

So, T Junior was hooked up to an IV because he was dehydrated from all of "the big D" and they took blood. Then, they took some more blood. Stool samples. Finally, a spinal tap.

Mr. T and I were absolutely beside ourselves. With the dog's episode the night before, we'd hardly had 8 hours of sleep between us. We were tired and scared.

On the 31st, they decided to give him antibiotics just in case.

We didn't really do much on Halloween. The doctor gave T Junior a cute sticker and one of the sweet nurses drew a jack-o-lantern on the white board in his room. (Two days later, another nurse swiped her hand across the drawing to erase it. "Halloween has come and gone," she declared. I tried not to cry.)

Poor guy.

T Junior still had a slight fever, so he wasn't feeling himself. We didn't make him put on his kitty costume. I was disappointed because his great-grandma bought it for him back in August and I had been waiting so long to see him in it. But, it would have been too much for him. Besides, we would have had to unhook his IV and then the nurses would have to rehook it. Then, when we wanted to take it off, they'd have to do the whole ordeal again. We took his picture anyway with just the ears on his head.

That night, though, some good news: his fever went away. I was so relieved and I actually slept more than the whole hour I got the night before. Still, we didn't know what he had.

I'm not sure what day we found out he had salmonella poisoning in his intestines and in his blood. All the days sort of blurred together. (Except for Sunday because they turned the power off to every unnecessary electric device while they hooked up the new portion of the hospital to their system. That meant no TV for a whole day. When you are in a tiny little room for five days, that TV is your saving grace. That day was so long.)

Luckily, the doctors put T Junior on an antibiotic that could fight salmonella. Having it in your intestines is one thing, but having it in your blood is another. When it infects your blood, there's a chance it could settle somewhere -- like the heart or brain -- and do some serious damage. The antibiotic is needed to get it out. When it is in your intestines, your body flushes it out naturally through "the big D."

We came home on Nov. 3, and T Junior just finished his antibiotics yesterday. But Mr. T and I haven't quite gotten over the whole thing. We're still a little nervous, and I've turned into one of those crazy moms you see in public with a tub of Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer and Wet Ones (antibacterial, of course). I'm sure I've had a few eyes roll at me. Well, let 'em roll.

I don't want to be scared like that ever again.