The Readys: Hand Foot Mouth

My adorable child made it 8 months into his day care free, easy life without so much as a slight fever. Then, we approach the 8 1/2 month mark and you would think our child was spending his days in the "sick kids" waiting area of the doctor's office. Here we are at 9 1/2 months old, and we have 2 ear infections, one of which peaked on Christmas Day, hand foot mouth, and soon a tear duct surgery on the books. The ear infections seem like a day at the spa compared to the hand foot mouth strand Luke happened to catch. All within a months time!!!! Needless to say, we are EXHAUSTED at the Ready house. The hand foot mouth started with a bad fever on Wednesday, started the rash/blisters on Thursday morning. By Saturday, Luke's poor face, hands, feet, and throat were covered in the blisters and he was MISERABLE. Saturday ended with him hooked up to an IV for fluids in the CHOA ER. Luke had terrible sores in his throat that were extremely painful according to the doctor. He would barely eat and screamed when he did. He even had a prescription for Tylenol and Codeine that we gave him before each meal and he still cried and refused to eat. By Saturday evening, he hadn't had a wet diaper in over 8 hours so we had to take him in for dehydration. It was a LOOOONG day, but at the end we were thankful we only spent the short amount of time that we had there. I truely feel for those parents who are in CHOA day and night with illnesses that blow HFM off the charts. The procedures kids undergo there daily makes common ailments, like HFM, seem so trivial, but at the same time it's so incredibly hard to see your baby the slightest bit uncomfortable. I almost died watching Luke have his IV hooked up in his sweet, chubby, little hand. I don't' think much else has EVER made my heart hurt like that. Tons of moms have gone through what we went through with HFM. They all walked their screaming babies up and down the hall day and night for 2 days straight, tried absolutely everything under the sun to get them to eat something, and thought it was never going away, but it still seemed like the most awful thing ever watching my own baby suffer through it. Now that we are home and our little guy is feeling better I feel so guilty b/c I know there are SOOOOOOO many chronic and deadly health issues he could face and how incredibly lucky we are it was only a virus. It is such a conflicting feeling!

After the fluids, he was a new baby :) It seemed to help so much. It helped all aspects. That same night we came home, he ate a great bedtime bottle and slept the whole night. Each day, he gets back to normal with his appetite and back on schedule. He still can't have acidic or salty stuff so we're living on formula and sweet potatoes! We had a follow up/pre-op for the tear duct surgery with Dr. Pip today. It sounds like he's been cleared for the procedure on Thursday. The surgeon will have the final call and we have yet to hear from him, but it sounds like it's a go!

Here are some pics from the past couple of days. Isn't my big boy so cute even when he feels cruddy. You can always force a tiny smile. It's just in his sweet nature, that he gets from his sweet Daddy!

A BIG THANKS to everyone who said a prayer, sent sweet thoughts, offered to help, or even read this post for Luke!