Poor Cameron. And frankly, poor me and DH. She has barely eaten since Saturday and we're lucky if she goes 5 minutes without crying. Daycare worked with us on Tuesday and Wednesday so we were able to work normal hours. Thursday was a whole different story.
I started to suspect on Wednesday that there might be more going on with Cameron than just a sore on her lip. The not eating coupled with uncharacteristic constant crying and fussiness was just too much. I blocked off my Thursday afternoon and busted my butt at work in the morning in case we got the dreaded call. And it came at 10:45 AM. The teacher told me that Cameron suddenly had sores all over her mouth, inside and out. I had amused myself by Googling hand foot and mouth disease last night so I pretty much knew that was what she had.
But who am I to deny myself the 4th doctor's co-pay since we got back from the holidays? I made a doctor's appointment hoping for some advice on pain management and getting her to eat. And also, her breath stinks. I'm mean it's kind of close to gagging terrible. 6 days with negligible amounts of food was making me emotionally overwrought. Poor Cameron wants to eat but every time she put something in her mouth she would start crying. And don't get me started on trying soft, cold, bland foods. I went to the grocery store twice to stock up on food and she has refused everything. Heck, she refused ice cream!
Needless to say, the doctor diagnosed it as the coxsackie virus and gave us a codeine prescription to help with sleeping/pain. We haven't filled it yet because I am allergic to codeine and the last thing I want is for Cameron to break out in a rash on top of this stupid virus. He warned me that this is a 5-7 day type virus and told me that her bad breath would resolve when the virus does. I'm not sure I can wait that long! Interestingly, the doctor seems to think that Cameron's strep was a total coincidence. So I have hope that this virus started Saturday/Sunday and she'll be ready for daycare again on Monday. DH is hoping so too because I'm traveling to Darden on Sunday for a recruiting trip. As of tomorrow I will be done one sick day and it's only the first week of January. Good thing I can use my sick days for Cameron.
Please send us good thoughts and prayers for quick healing. If you saw Cameron's mouth you would think she has leprosy. I tried to find a picture example online but everything I saw was nothing compared to what she has. If she let's me take a picture of her mouth tomorrow (unlikely) I'll post it for you sickos who want to see it.
4 comments:
Wow, that's horrible. We all had strep before Xmas (even C who is 16 months), then he developed a fever after I missed 2 days from work because of being trapped on west coast due to blizzard. Good news: this winter of sickness can't go on forever.
Oh poor Cameron! I feel so sad for babies who are sick, they just don't know what to do except cry! Hopefully she's just getting all the bad stuff for the year over quickly :) praying for you guys!
DUDE! I am going to give you some great advice. My boys got hand foot mouth twice because the first time they didn't get a strong enough strain to build an intolerance. I will never forget that, they cried and screamed so much.
Liquid maalox (sp?). Get a syringe and squirt some inside her mouth everywhere a few minutes before eating. It helps soothe the sores so she can eat. I think it was 1/2 tsp every four hours maximum. Also it comes with a fever but motrin aggravates the sores (as does orajel), so use tylenol.
One of my friends here caught it from her kids and she said it was so incredibly painful.
Also this is an awesome rash resource, pictures of every rash possible:
http://www.windsorpeak.com/baby411/rashorama.html
Hand foot mouth was seriously one of the worst illnesses we ever had to deal bc of the insane fussiness, crying.
Motrin aggravates it? Crap. The doctor didn't say anything about that and I just gave her a dose! Tylenol (or really a substitute since its not back on the shelves yet) from here on out.
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