Actually, it's HAND
FOOT
and MOUTH DISEASE.
We're not exactly sure where we picked this up. It could've been the gym childcare, church, wal-mart, anywhere really.
She woke up with blisters all over her feet and hands. I chocked it up to some sort of chicken/barn rash or allergy because the only unusual place she'd been this past weekend was out to a farm to feed chickens with Mooma. But she'd been out there before, so that didn't really make much sense. The blisters started out really tiny and by early evening, they'd quadrupled in size. Ryan decided she needed a doctor, so I took her to the Emergency Room.
I'm not a fan of the ER. For one, the wait is always too long. Trying to entertain two small children for hours on end is exhausting. Thank goodness for iPads. Secondly, I feel as though since we're not dead yet, we can usually wait a few more hours and get a rush appointment the next day. But that's almost like trying to win the lottery. There aren't a whole lot of same-day appointments and you have to beat eighty other moms on the phone at 7am sharp if you even have a hope of getting one of those time slots. One option is no better than the other.
Thank you United States Army.
As soon as we were in a room, the nurse suspected what was wrong but didn't want to say since he wasn't a doctor. He did say it was a childhood disease and kept trying to check inside her mouth. Of course Elayna was a toot by this point and refused. Okay... it's a good thing 3G didn't exist in that room. Because I had no idea what he was getting at and I'd have been googling as fast as my fingers could tap trying to find out what was wrong before I had to wait another hour for the doctor to "officially" say. One bar on Edge was barely enough to squeeze out text updates to Ryan.
Well our doctor FINALLY officially said, "Hand Foot and Mouth Disease." How do you treat it? You don't. It's a viral infection and you just let it run its course. The blisters will go away in a few days and that's that. Oh, did I mention it's highly contagious? Elayna's not allowed near Cora for the next week. Pfft. Like that's gonna happen. Maybe if I had a Mooma, Bala, or RaRa to help me out (hint hint). I just hate that she's going to miss out on Vacation Bible School. She loved it last year (all three of them) and we've been really excited for this year's. Maybe we can catch a late summer program.
The good thing is she's not sickly in any other way. Well, that's not true. She's got a fever, the runs and is extremely tired. But there's no vomit and that's the one I really can't deal with. She's smiling and laughing and running around like her usual lunatic self. Yay!
So if you have a child that's been around Elayna in the last week, watch out for itty bitty blisters and go to the hospital if you see any. Although, you'll probably just wait forever to be told what you already know and then be sent home without any medicinal treatment.
