Hands, Feet, and Mouth
Late last week, Joel called me while I was at work and proudly announced, “She’s done it! She finally done it! She pointed to her toes when I said, ‘Where are your toes, Adelaide?’”
Joel had been working on easy anatomy with Adelaide for a couple of months now, every now and again encouraging her to repeat words like toes, tongue, ears, nose, eyes, and belly between her favorite utterances dog, cat, bird, ball, doll, and bike.
After work I came home to a little performance of Adelaide’s newly-created knowledge, and gleefully watched her identify various body parts as Joel rattled off a list of about six or seven. I scooped Adelaide up for a kiss and a hug and noticed a small, blistery-looking, zit-type-thingy under her lower lip.
[Duhn, duhn, duuuuhhnnnn]
We thought maybe it was a zit. Or, maybe a cold sore? Either way, we left it alone and went to bed … And had an awful night sleep, with Adelaide screaming, kicking, tossing and turning all night long.
The next night she had a fever.
The next day she had another zit-cold-sore thingy near her upper lip.
The night after that we slept in a pop-up camper at a Minnesota State Park. And she had another fever.
The following morning, she had another zit-thingy, and we noticed that she had canker-like sores on her tongue and swollen gums.
When we finally got home after our trip to New Ulm, Joel did some research and we narrowed Adelaide’s outbreak culprit down to the highly contagious, incredibly infamous coxsackie virus.
The coxsackie virus produces a well-known viral infection among schoolteachers and day care providers: Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. The infected person breaks out in little, painful pustules all over the palms of their hands, soles of their feet, and in and around their mouths. Eating anything spicy or acidic is like lemon juice on a paper cut, and the pustules can last up to ten days. So far, Adelaide is about five days into her infection, and holding her own. She’s drinking well, and eating a little here and there. She’s really, really irritable and sleeps a lot more than usual.
Good thing rain is in the forecast for this entire week.
Comments
Yep, that is another one of those nasty kid things that would hospitalize the most hearty of adults. Poor love.
Jonas had a happy birthday... check it out!
http://web.mac.com/syncpop/iWeb/CasadeClaire/CasadeJonas.html
Posted by: Auntie Kath | May 30, 2007 12:02 PM
Yep, that is another one of those nasty kid things that would hospitalize the most hearty of adults. Poor love.
Jonas had a happy birthday... check it out!
http://web.mac.com/syncpop/iWeb/CasadeClaire/CasadeJonas.html
Posted by: Auntie Kath | May 30, 2007 12:02 PM
Kids are such germ bags. It's impressive, really.
Are adults susceptible to HFM?
Posted by: Lisa | May 31, 2007 12:43 PM
Eeep! Best wishes! I hope she gets better soon!
Posted by: Matt | June 3, 2007 1:51 AM