Beware Of The Virus Pits

Today was the first official day of Camp Mommy.  Since it is so freakin hot outside, I decided (against my better judgement) to take my boys to an indoor kids gym which is full of inflatable slides and bounce houses.

Let me be clear.  I am not a fan of these types of places and consider them nothing more than virus pits.  And I have good reason.  When Alex was 15 months old, I took him to a mall where they have one of those little play areas in the middle of it.  It was a decent sized area/pit with padded walls and floors and a bunch of little foam faux fruits and veggies that toddlers could climb on, under or through.  Fun right?  Sure it was fun.  Alex loved it.  No one seemed to care or even notice that it reeked of poopie diapers.  Except me.  Oh well.  You have to expect Eau de Poop in a place like that anyway right?  Besides, he was having a good time and I was having a much needed break while he played.  I did however make sure to thoroughly wash his hands when he was finished playing and we were on our way home.

Fast forward three days.

Alex woke up with a high fever and could not stop vomiting.  He couldn’t even keep water down.  He was up all night vomiting and I was right there changing his clothes (and my own) after each episode while trying to calm him down and keep him as comfortable as possible.  He was finally able to keep the Tylenol down and the fever broke but then he threw in a bonus for me:  Diarrhea.  Lucky me.

I took him to the pediatrician the next morning and that is when I learned that Alex had rotavirus.  The nurse had me bring in a poopie diaper so they could test it and sure enough, it was positive for rotavirus.  If you are not familiar with rotavirus, I hope to God you never will be because it is miserable for everyone involved.  Basically, it is a gastrointestinal virus that commonly affects kids before they are two years old.  It starts with a fever, then vomiting and diarrhea.   Although the vomiting doesn’t last long, the diarrhea can last anywhere from five to seven days.  Nice huh?  Oh and there is absolutely NO mistaking when a child has this virus because the stench of the diarrhea is like NOTHING you have EVER smelled.  It is THE MOST funky smell…I can’t even begin to describe it but trust me, you’ll know if your child has it.  Alex had the “poopies” for exactly seven days and his little butt was so raw from constantly going, he would scream bloody murder every time he went.  And there was nothing I could do about it.  Just on one day, and this is no exaggeration, he soiled 15 diapers.  Every time we changed one, he would go again.  We went through an entire box of Aveeno Baby Bath and a tube of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.  The whole experience was awful and that is putting it mildly.

So that is the reason why I despise these kind of places.  Oh and FYI: the incubation period for rotavirus is THREE DAYS FROM EXPOSURE!  Yep.  Three days before my kid was puking and pooping his brains out we were at the mall in the virus pit.  You do the math.

Back to today. 

The boys had a blast jumping around on at least ten different HUGE inflatables and their sweat soaked hair was proof of it.  They jumped and slid their butts off for two hours and were finally ready to go home at 6:00 p.m.   Of course I made sure that we all went into the bathroom and washed our hands and believe it or not, that is where I decided today would be the last time I would come to this place.  Why?  Because while I was in there, a woman walked in and cut in front of me, went straight to the sink (there was only ONE sink) and began to furiously wash her hands.  She apologized for jumping in front of me and said that her son had blood on his sock (it is a requirement that all the kids wear socks to play) and it wasn’t HIS blood and she touched it so she wanted to wash her hands.  I told her to take as long as she wanted.  I was completely skeeved out after that and was more than ready to leave if I wasn’t before that.

But wait.  It gets better.  After I got home I spoke to a friend and told her the story about the blood and she said “Wait.  I have a better one for you.  We were there last week and my son went down one of the slides and when he got off he was all wet.  I asked him why he was wet and he said they have a water slide in here now!  I thought maybe it was water or soda that another kid spilled but it turned out that some little girl peed herself while on the slide and my son slid down in it!” 

OMG!

How disgusting is that?  She told the manager and they did close down the slide to clean and disinfect it.  They also gave my friend free passes to come back another time since she had to leave and change her son out of his stranger-piss soaked clothes.  Still.  Would you go back there after that? 

Not me.

I am DONE with that place.

Camp Mommy has left the building…for good!