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Poor Luke

At the doctor's office yesterday, the Dr. mentioned that Luke had some ulcers on the inside of his mouth. "Has he had a fever? A rash on his bottom or hands and feet? There is hand, foot and mouth disease going around." When I answered no, she said that in that case, the sores were probably just from some virus and would go away. I went away thankful that Luke didn't have hand foot and mouth disease.

Well, he woke up last night with a fever, and even after motrin this morning he still had a fever. He was sad enough to snuggle with daddy for about 10 minutes this morning (while Daddy let me sleep, since I will have to carry Luke around all day today). I think he pretty clearly has HFMD.

Now the challenge is to try to keep Amanda and Eleanor from getting this. We have instituted strict hand washing protocols, but it is difficult to keep Luke from (for example) putting his fingers in Amanda's mouth, or having them both blow raspberries on the couch, or having Amanda give Luke her stuffed toys to make him feel better...

Plus, the websites say that "after the first week, the child is less contagious..." So how long do we have to keep Amanda from tickling Luke until he giggles uncontrollably? How long do we keep them from wrestling with each other?

Sigh. We are also going on a big trip up to MN and WI in just over a week. Again from the website, "symptoms clear up after the first week" and "the symptoms show up 3-6 days after exposure..." So that means that if Amanda picks up the illness in a few days, she will be at her sickest just as we are supposed to fly up to the Midwest... we will be taking a private plane (6 seater) which is either better or worse than flying commercially, depending on your perspective. So she won't get everyone else in a commercial jet sick, but she will be miserable in the plane for longer.

Incidentally, I had never heard of hand foot and mouth disease until we had kids. (My first reaction was, "You mean like the cows get?") Did we ever get this as kids? It is possible that I was simply too young to remember, but it seems like HFMD and fifth disease are more common now.

Time to make dinner: chicken curry.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
You never never had HFMD. In fact, we didn't even know it existed! Strange new disease...or else it was never diagnosed right.

Mom
July 3, 2008 at 1:57 PM
mathmom said…
I read that HFMD was first found in Austraila in the 50s or 60s, and that by the 70s it was world wide. Unfortunately I can't find this source... It also sounds like HFMD is often misdiagnosed.

It is also very contagious, and Luke goes around all day drooling, so probably Amanda will get it, although Eleanor might not (or at least not a severe case).
July 4, 2008 at 9:44 PM
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