This has been by far the hardest part of single parenting my twins. They are more often ill than not and I usually get what they have too and sometimes worse than they do. It's absolute Hell, as many many times, I'm barely able to crawl around the house, I'm so ill, yet they still need to be looked after and there's never ever been anyone to help out. Childcarers run a mile if the children are sick, not that I've had any child care for years now. I can't count the number of times I've wept with despair as yet another sleepless day and night go by, filled with changing vomit covered bedding, whilst trying to hold back my own sickness, until I get the chance to make it to the loo.
I vividly remember night after night and day after day of no sleep at all, when it got to the point that I just put more and more towels on top of our floor mattress (we co-slept for 5 yrs)to cover the latest vomit because I was too ill and tired to do yet more laundry.
The twins are now 8 and it's STILL hard, though not so bad as it was. Every single school holiday since 2008, we've all been ill with something - norovirus at Xmas, me with the worst flu ever lasting 8 weeks in the summer, whilst the twins had recurrent d & v that whole time.
Xmas dinner - the day I caught the norovirus - was stale bread and crisps last year and I just cried and cried because I felt so guilty that I couldn't even provide the basic fun on that day. We watched TV all day really and this is what we do at other times too. There's a shop across the road, about 4 mins away and that's a life-saver. I usually manage to make a dash there and buy bread and crisps and chocolate and juice and we just manage to survive.
Sorry this sounds so depressing and clearly, each time, we all DO survive. It's just that this has hit a nerve with me, as there's NOTHING worse than being really, really ill myself and yet STILL having to care for the twins. We've no family at all (and no ex) and no friends who'd be able to help, as no one ever wants to expose themselves to the latest virus. I've had to tell the twins that if Mum ever can't be woken up, they have to phone 999. I don't want to scare them but they do need to know what to do if anything ever happened.
I once even tried to recruit an emergency temporary agency nurse to help out when the twins were babies and I was just too sick to cope at all but there was nothing like that available. I'd gladly have paid anything just to get some respite.
The worst part is knowing that there's yet another long and completely sleepless night ahead
of me, filled with children's vomit across beds, walls and carpets, despite me feeling so ill that I can barely walk and could sleep standing up cos I'm so tired.
I suppose if I could say anything positive it would be to emphasise that somehow you survive and as long as the children have water to drink and some basic food, if they're not ill too, they can get by with minimal support....but I often really do despair.