Hand, Foot & Mouth

As I mentioned in a previous post, I drove down to Hot Springs on Thursday, 5/26 for an interview.  It was a quick overnight trip and I drove back home on Friday.  We were planning a trip to Tulsa to see Jan & Bill for Memorial Day weekend.  I was on the phone talking to my mom – almost to Fayetteville – when I got an incoming call from a number I didn’t recognize.  I let it go to voicemail.  When I got off the phone with Mom, I checked the message.  It was the kids’ daycare.  Nola was running a fever of 101.9 and they needed someone to come get her.  Ugh…

By this time I was in Fayetteville, so I called Rudy and told him that I would pick the kids up up & meet him at home.  My plan was to bring Caleb home and then take Nola to convenient care.  The boys packed and left for Tulsa while I took Nola to Wellquest.  There was a 2 1/2 hour wait, so I decided to try out the new walk-in clinic in town.  Lo and behold – we were the only people there.  (Seriously, the doctor was playing solitaire when we walked past him on our way to the exam room.)  I figured that was either because they were brand new and people didn’t know about them yet or they were awful.  Either way, I needed someone to take a look at Nola and find out why she had spiked a fever.  I suspected hand, foot & mouth virus because we had some friends over for dinner the week before and their daughter started showing symptoms 2 days later.  I mentioned it to the doctor, but he didn’t see anything to base the diagnosis on.  He looked in her mouth and her throat was a mess.  Strep swab was negative, but there was no way her throat felt good.  He called it a bacterial infection, prescribed good ol’ amoxicillin and sent us on our way. 

I started her on the amoxicillin that night.  She obviously didn’t feel well.  The fever hung on through the night, but was much lower the next morning.  We spent Saturday snuggled up in the big chair in the living room.  She napped on my chest while I watched more TV than I’ve watched in months.
She still felt pretty miserable, but the fever gradually went away.  By mid-afternoon, red spots were starting to show up on her body.  By 5:30, they were turning into blisters.  Yep, she definitely had it.  Full-blown hand, foot & mouth. 

The worst blisters were on her left thumb – the one that she sucks.  Our pediatrician had told me previously that our best bet for her to stop thumb-sucking was to contract HFM.  Secretly, I was kind of giddy about the idea of that working.   Not that I wanted her to have to suffer the awfulness of HFM, but I was really hoping there would be a good payoff in the end.

By bedtime, she was miserable.   By 12:30, I gave up and put her in bed with me.  Neither of us got much sleep.  The worst part of HFM is that there is absolutely no medicine for it.  It’s viral & just has to run its course.  I gave her tylenol for the pain, but it didn’t seem to help. 

On Sunday, we went back to convenient care.  This time, I went to Mercy.  We waited and waited and waited to see a doctor.  Nola wore her sunglasses in the waiting room so she could be incognito.  She would’ve been mortified if any of the kids from her class had seen her with those blisters on her hands and face! 

 

Once we finally got back to the room, we waited a while longer for the doctor.  Nola was tired.  It was naptime.  She really didn’t want anything to do with that room or me for that matter.  She screamed and screamed and threw a tantrum like I haven’t ever seen her throw.  I’m pretty sure it all started because I told her she couldn’t put her diaper bag in the medical waste trash can.  Eventually, the doctor came in.  She took a look at Nola’s blisters, listened to the information that I shared and said, “Yeah, she has a really bad case of HFM. Really bad.”  She took her off the amoxicillin & said to just ride it out.  I asked about returning to daycare and she wrote a note saying she could go back when she was 24 hours fever-free and eating/drinking normally.  Well, we were already at both of those milestones, so technically she was in the clear. 

We went home & both of us took a much-needed nap.  After nap, we played and watched some more TV.  She was obviously feeling better as long as the tylenol was controlling her pain.  She even discovered her bellybutton.  (She’s now obsessed with bellybuttons.  If you’re around her, I highly recommend tucking in your shirt.)

This is what Nola’s thumb looked like by Sunday night.  Heartbreaking.  It was about 50% larger than the other one and the blisters were so large that you couldn’t really tell where one stopped and the next one started.  They were beginning to break and become open sores.  It was not fun.

The boys came home on Monday and we made the decision that Nola could not go back to daycare on Tuesday after the Memorial Day break.  My mom offered to come up and keep her.  We were concerned about sending her out with open sores that couldn’t be bandaged.  She could get any kind of infection in those sores and we couldn’t stomach the thought.  So, Mom kept her home Tuesday and Wednesday. 

On Wednesday night, I did something I never thought I’d do.  I gave Nola a pacifier.  She was having such a hard time sleeping because she wanted to suck her thumb, but it hurt.  I remembered that I happened to have 2 pacifiers in the cabinet, so I gave her one.  After a few seconds, she calmed herself right down and went to sleep.  A lightbulb went off in my mind!  Maybe…just maybe, she would take to the pacifier and stop sucking her thumb after all.  Then, once I knew she didn’t miss that thumb anymore, I could instate paci rehab and we’d be done with it all!  My evil plan was foiled.  The paci served its purpose for one night.  As I type this, Nola is in her bed, sound asleep, thumb firmly planted in her mouth.    Can’t say I didn’t try!

She still had her boo-boo on Thursday (and was quite happy to show it to everyone who would look at it).  She really liked for people to blow on it and then she would try to do the same, but usually ended up blowing a raspberry at it.  Mom offered to take her home with her for the weekend.  As much as I hated to be away from her for that long, I decided it was for the best.  So, they packed up and headed for Hot Springs on Thursday morning.  Mom reported frequently on her improvement and Nola had a blast being the center of attention at LaLa’s house. 

We met Mom and Mr L in Ft. Smith on Sunday for lunch and brought Nola home with us.  We were so glad to have her home, but most of all we were glad to see HFM go away!

56 Days

That's how long it's been since I posted.  56 days.  I haven't felt much like writing, nor have I had the time.  Lots of things have happened that I meant to post about, but didn't.  Recently, I've found myself thinking about how much I miss it, though.  So, here I sit on Mother's Day with the keyboard and my thoughts.  But, gracious...where do I start?  I could start with now, say that the last month and a half have been busy and not even try to update, but I don't want to miss documenting the events of the last 56 days.  I'll be as concise as I can, but it's been a busy spring.  The next few posts will tell why.

Make It Work, People

Project Runway is one of my favorite shows.  I’m not sure why.  I like what I consider fashion, but I’m not obsessed with it and my idea of fashion tends to differ vastly from the judges’ opinions on the show.  The drama on the “reality” show is awesome and the diva personalities of the designers range from maddening to likable to blah.  My favorite part of the show is watching Tim Gunn do his thing as the consultant to the designers.  Some of his catchphrases have made their way into my vernacular.  My two favorites are “carry on” and “make it work.” 

“Make it work” has kind of been a theme for our household for a while now.  Between sick kids, some rough patches at work, a hectic schedule and the general ups and downs of family life, some days I feel like we are doing all we can to make it work. 

This week has been a pretty good one.  We have successfully made it work despite some bumps in the road.  We went to church on Sunday, then out to lunch at Einstein’s.  The boys made a trip to Academy to get some equipment to start preparing for t-ball, which starts in just a couple of weeks.  While they were gone, I got the urge to take some pictures.  Nola was my model as usual and despite the fact that she wasn’t very interested in the idea, I managed to get some pretty good shots, including this one: 
Wednesday was by far the hardest day of the week for me.  Rudy had class, so I picked the kids up at daycare with full intentions of spending the evening at church.  I had talked to our children’s ministry director about starting a playgroup on Wednesday nights and this week was supposed to be the first night.  Nola and I were there, but nobody else showed up.  I sent Caleb to the 4 year old class and then sat in the room with Nola for 45 minutes but nobody else came.  I was disappointed, but realized that the announcement had only gone out earlier that week and maybe other people couldn’t come on such short notice.  After that, I picked up Caleb and got ready for dinner at church before the Ash Wednesday service.  I managed to get a highchair to our table while carrying Nola and guiding Caleb through the crowd.  Once our stuff was settled, I maneuvered through the buffet line to get baked potatoes for myself and Nola and chicken nuggets for Caleb.  We sat down and I got Caleb started eating while I cut up food for a very impatient and hungry Nola.  I had forgotten to bring a bag for her, so we were without a bib, a sippy cup or any extra diapers.  I managed to feed her bits of food to keep her occupied, but realized that I was becoming more and more stressed with every passing minute.  It was just too hard to manage feeding both of them and myself from a baked potato bar.  I finally gave up and as I was gathering our things and picking up the mess that Nola had made on the floor, she began to cry.  By the time I got her out of there, she was in full meltdown.  People were staring at me, but nobody offered to help.  I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  I made the difficult decision to throw in the towel and skip the Ash Wednesday service.  I had really wanted to go to that and share that experience with Caleb, but there was just no way.  I needed to get home.  I drove home with tears in my eyes, feeling frustrated and disheartened that I hadn’t been able to “make it work.”

On Thursday, I made it to work and realized that I had forgotten my workout pants.  I ran to WalMart at lunch and bought a pair of pants and some other things that I needed and then went back to work.  After work, I went into the bathroom to change clothes.  Once I was fully dressed, I realized that I had also forgotten my shoes.  I was bound and determined not to skip my workout, so I went (in my socks) to the Shoe Dept and bought some new shoes.  I met Leola for our workout and we tried 3 different rooms before we could find a place where our DVDs would work.  We were rocking and rolling along for about 30 minutes when I realized that my toes were quickly going numb.  The new shoes were not working for me.  We stopped our workout a little early and when I got ready to leave, I realized I didn’t have my keys.  I retraced my steps and found my keys in the first room that we had tried.  By that time, I needed to get to church for my board meeting.  The meeting was short and sweet as usual and then I came home at 7:00 – 12 hours after I left – understanding a little better what my ADHD students must feel like every day.

Friday afternoon, I went to the Rhea Lana consignment sale with Stacy and got some great clothes for Nola at a good price.  Then I ran in Hobby Lobby to get the supplies to make Caleb’s birthday invitations before picking the kids up from daycare.  I fed both of them pancakes for supper, we took a walk around the neighborhood and then I put Nola to bed.  Caleb and I snuggled in my bed watching a movie and then went to sleep before Rudy got home from his work obligation.

We didn’t have much to do today until our pictures for the church directory late this afternoon.  We got all dressed up and the kids did great while we took the pictures.  Unfortunately, they didn’t turn out good at all.  We had trouble even choosing one that we weren’t embarrassed to put in the directory.  We certainly didn’t buy any of them, which was a disappointment, since we haven’t had family pictures taken since Caleb was a baby.  After our pictures, we decided to go out to eat.  Rudy suggested Shogun because he thought Caleb would like watching the guy cook our food and do all of that crazy stuff they do while they cook.  It was a mild disaster.  Caleb didn’t like the food.  Nola made a royal mess between trying to eat noodles with her hands and spitting out everything else.  Rudy and I spent all of our time taking care of the two of them and barely tasted our food.  We couldn’t wait to get home.

Tomorrow, I’m taking Caleb to meet Mom and Mr. L. for his week in Hot Springs.  He’s staying with them while Rudy has meetings 3 nights this week and class on the only remaining night.  We’ll meet them again on Friday or Saturday to get him back.  Spring Break starts on Friday at 2:45.  Hallelujah! 
And so we Make It Work…and Carry On.

The Week from…

The 2 weeks (give or take a few days) in February of being snowed in and not being able to be in the germ pool of school were glorious for us.  Everyone got well – even Nola.  We were all healthy and doing great until the night of the 16th.  The only way I know to even explain this is on a day-by-day basis.  It’s unbelievable even to me – and I lived it.

Wednesday, 2/16 – Rudy went to class and came home around 9:00 as usual.  He usually sleeps on the couch when he gets home late because he likes to relax and watch TV before he can go to sleep.  He woke up during the night with chills and fever.  He finally got back to sleep and felt a little better when he woke up, so he went to work. 

Thursday, 2/17 – Rudy still wasn’t feeling great, so he went to the walk-in clinic.  The doctor there diagnosed him with a sinus infection, wrote him a prescription for an antibiotic and sent him on his way.  He came home feeling awful, but knew it was a sinus infection, so he stayed in the mix with the family that night.

Friday, 2/18 – I woke up around 4 AM because my throat hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe well.  I took my temperature, but didn’t have a fever.  I looked in my throat and didn’t see white pockets, so I ate a cough drop and went back to bed.  I woke up still feeling the sore throat, but went to work because I didn’t have fever.  (I have NO sick days left this year.)  I pushed through my day at work and felt a little worse as the day went on.  By 2:00, I was miserable.  That’s when the chills set in.  I went to the school nurse and didn’t have a fever, but I knew something was wrong, so I left work about 20 minutes early and went to the walk-in clinic.  After I told the nurse all of my symptoms, the doctor came in and asked me, “Do you have strep or the flu?”  I told him I hoped I didn’t have either one and I really didn’t want to be tested for either one because those swabs freak me out.  He looked in my throat and told me that he didn’t even need to swab me.  I had strep throat.  He wrote my prescriptions and sent me on my way.  I picked up my meds and came home to crawl under the covers.  I hurt from head to toe and back again and thought I was going to freeze to death.  I texted Rudy to tell him what was going on and he said he would take the kids to the boat show so that the house would be quiet.  I fell asleep and barely remember anything until Saturday.  I remember them coming in and I remember hearing Rudy and Nola coughing, but I was too sick to do anything about it.  Plus – I sure didn’t want to give anyone else strep.  So, I stayed in bed.

Saturday, 2/19 – I only got out of bed to go to the bathroom.  Rudy was supposed to have gone to do a volunteer music program at the library in Fayetteville, but he called and cancelled because he didn’t feel well.  Kathy was going to come over and watch the kids, but he cancelled that too.  I listened to him coughing and noticed that it was getting worse, but there was nothing I could do to help him.

Sunday, 2/20 – I woke up feeling like a new person.  I was still tired and weak, but I was able to walk and talk, which was a huge improvement.  Rudy and Caleb went to church because Rudy was scheduled to play his trumpet.  When they got home from church, Rudy was feeling awful.  He mentioned going to the doctor on Monday, but I encouraged him to go ahead and go on Sunday.  He did and texted me from the clinic to tell me that he had the flu.  I got the bed ready for him and as soon as he walked in the door, he was quarantined to the bedroom.

This is what our kitchen counter looked like on Sunday afternoon…

Monday, 2/21 – I went to work and took the kids to daycare.  They called me around noon to tell me that Nola had a fever.  It was less than 100*, so I didn’t go get her.  I left school as soon as I could and picked them up.  I took both of them to the pediatric clinic.  We saw Dr. Schaefer and he wrote prescriptions for both kids to prevent them from getting the flu.  When we left there, we went to eat and then to WalMart to get the medicines and some groceries.  By the time we got home, it was bedtime for the kids.  Rudy was still in the bed with the flu.

Tuesday, 2/22 – The kids and I went to school as usual.  Nola was still coughing her head off, but didn’t have fever over 100*, so I took her.  We made it through the day and I picked the kids up as soon as possible.  Caleb was a real trooper and entertained himself very well while I tended to Nola, made sure Rudy had what he needed and did the usual household things that need to be done.  I called my mom to tell her that we were going to need some help because Nola was getting worse and Rudy wasn’t getting any better.  She offered to come on Wednesday.  I called Jan to see if she could come to watch Nola until my mom got here and she agreed to, but couldn’t come until Wednesday morning.  Shortly after that, my mom called back and said that she was already an hour outside of Hot Springs and headed our way.  I called Jan back to tell her that she didn’t need to come.  Mom got to our house at 11:15 Tuesday night.  I swear she was wearing invisible angel wings.

Wednesday, 2/23 – Mom stayed home with Nola.  Rudy stayed quarantined in the bedroom.  Caleb and I went to school.  I came home to a hot meal, a clean house and the peace of mind that Nola had been taken care of all day without worry.  It was glorious.

Thursday, 2/24 – Rudy tried to go to work, but only made it 1/2 the day before he couldn’t go any further.  Mom kept Nola.  Caleb and I did our usual thing.  Again, I came home to a hot meal, a clean house and peace of mind.  Still glorious.

Friday, 2/25 was a repeat of Thursday, except I had told Mom that I would pick up dinner.  It ended up that I picked her and Nola up and they rode with me to Sam’s.  After that, we went in a consignment shop and then to get Caleb from school.  We stopped at PF Chang’s to get some take-out and Steak & Shake to get food for the kids.  We came home and ate, then spent the rest of the night visiting and catching up.

Saturday, 2/26 – I stayed up into the early hours of the morning planning Caleb’s birthday party and decompressing my mind from the week.  Mom had told me that I could sleep in on Saturday, so I was planning to do that.  She woke me up at 4 AM to tell me that she had gotten sick during the night and had to go home.  We scrambled to get her things in the car and I prayed that she would make it safely before going back to sleep.  She called when she got home to tell me that she was okay.  We spent the rest of the day being lazy and trying to recuperate from our manic week.

Sunday, 2/27 – Rudy was feeling a little better, but still not great, so we stayed home from church.  Nola was still coughing and I was just exhausted.  Caleb was still being a trooper.  I took him with me to WalMart to get some groceries.  We came home and I made dinner before getting ready for the week.

Monday, 2/28 – Amazingly, everybody went where they were supposed to go and stayed there all day.  I had a meeting until 4:00 and then went to Weight Watchers, where I found out that I’ve lost 12 lbs since January 10th!!  Rudy picked up the kids and I met them at home, then we all went out to dinner. 

Tuesday, 3/1 – I picked the kids up from daycare and took them to the park.  Rudy went back to the walk-in clinic to get some cough medicine so he can sleep.  He found out that he has an irregular heartbeat and has to see a doctor about it.  The doctor at the clinic told him it’s nothing to worry about, but that he should have it checked out sometime.  We’re taking both parts of that advice.

Now it’s Friday night.  The rest of the week has been pretty normal.  Nola is still coughing.  Rudy is still coughing, but has good cough medicine so he can sleep.  I’m doing fine and staying very busy at work.  I have an intern this semester, so I’m not having to bring home as much paperwork, which is nice.  Rudy took Caleb to meet Jan last night and he is spending the weekend in Tulsa with her and Bill.  Nola and I are hanging out tomorrow at home while Rudy has to work.  Fayetteville is having a make up snow day tomorrow.  School on a Saturday!  I’m looking forward to getting Caleb home, then we’ll turn around and it’ll be spring break.  I can’t wait…

Ouch.

Last night, Caleb and I were reading books together. It's truly one of my favorite things to do. I love that he loves books. I sit in the floor in his room and he brings me book after book. We read them and talk about them for long stretches of time. I love it.

We were on book number 7 or 8 last night - a book called "The Way I Feel." It has beautiful pictures and is intended to teach about emotions. Caleb giggled at the silly picture and growled at the angry picture. When we got to the sad picture, he said, "Why he crying?" My automatic therapist's response was, "I don't know. Why do you think he's crying?" That's when my precious child said the words that crushed me, "He sad. He Mama go to work." Oh. My. Gosh. I was stunned to silence for a few moments while I tried to gather myself. My only response was, "Yes, he's sad. His mama is sad to leave him too, but Mamas always come back. Mama will always come back."