Last week I decided I needed to do extra work in a real office with real computers and real internet connections in my old office in Marikina.  We are scheduled to move out soon as the landlord of the new office space in Cubao approves our application.  So I’m camping in my old office to get things done.

What do you know, I get interrupted.  My wife calls around Wednesday that our 8 year old boy has been suffering the same “stomach flu” symptoms as his grandfather.  He’s pooped 6 times in a day.  And was nauseous and barfing too.  Therefore, I’m needed.  It’s nice to know I’m needed sometimes.  Since it was already night time, my boy just needed to survive the night so I asked my wife to buy some Gatorade for hydration purposes.  They are in the new artificial city of Fort Bonifacio so they have no real market logistics in that area.

The following morning at 6:30 am I arrived to fetch my boy.  We drove back to my office so I could work and observe him 24 hours a day with no distractions and no stimulations.  He was very tired.  He needed sitting, slouching and sleeping.  And he needed fresh air, something my old office has.

I thought with the amount of poop he had done he will have finished his tummy problem.  I asked him what he wanted to eat so we had some cooked fatty meat.  Big mistake, this was not the time yet.

The following morning I asked him to eat a raw duck egg for breakfast, which he did.  Then we went to the market to get some fresh coconut juice and meat.  While I was buying coconuts I came back to the car and saw my boy had barfed on his pajamas and on the back car seat.  Barfing is good.  He wanted to go back to the office / home to change.  In the office he barfed and barfed some more until he couldn’t barf anymore.

When at last his barfing seems to have pumped out any stomach contents, he justed seemed weak and dizzy.  Sure signs of dehydration.  The fastest way to get him re-hydrated was with water melons.  Good thing our driver arrived.  He got a nice watermelon.  Expensive these days, they are out of season, 130 pesos for that one small water melon.

We proceeded with re-hydrating procedures.  A couple of water melon slices, complete with a lot of white rind, every 30 minutes.  I asked my boy to observe his symptoms.  I wanted this to be a learning experience for himself.  At first he was too lazy to eat the watermelon, I told him if he did not and if he continued to dehydrate himself I will be forced to take him to the hospital and he would get painful injections… that was good incentive, it worked.

My boy observed that his dizzy spell first disappeared.  He noticed that his energy started growing.  I asked him the oft heard radio spiel “May energy ka ba?” / “Do you have energy?” he said yes, yes, and yes.  By the end of the afternoon we headed home to Fort Bonifacio, we ran out of clothes due to the barfing.  He had extra energy for the evening to see my wife play the harp in the restaurant Le Soufle.

Saturday and Sunday were very tiring and play activity packed days as the cousins slept over and kept all the kids in endless activities. There’s playing in the condo building playground, playing out in Market Market playground, going to Fully Booked, going to Boni High Street, and playing games indoors until late at night.  Along with cousin activity came junk food.  This Sunday at mid morning he tried some french bread with butter… hah, he felt bad after eating it, he felt dehydrated after eating it.  Then in the late afternoon in my absence they ate doughnuts.  Now why do grownups find it fun to feed children junk food?  There is a reason it is called junk food, it’s bad food. It should not be called food.

What proved this weekend is that the loose bowel movement and barfing episode is over.  His stomach is recovering.  I need to strengthen his digestive system so he can eat more food. I tried feeding him bieler’s soup this evening but that idiotic cousin peer pressure to not eat something strange in their point of view as green soup got the upper hand. Do you know how expensive zuccini is these days? 250 per kilo!

I have another zuccini available for tomorrow. I will try again at breakfast.