Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Hand, Foot and Mouth

Last week Ben crawled into the bathroom and just as I rounded the corner to get him, he fell into the tub. He did not hit hard, and cried just a little, but soon after I noticed a red spot on his tongue. I figured he bit his tongue, since it is usually sticking out anyway, and did not think much of it after that.

The next day, Alyce and I were laying tile on the kitchen counters, and needed to make an unexpected trip to Lincoln for more supplies. (That is a whole other story, but I will not tell it here.) While at the store I noticed what looked like a small white head in the spot on Ben's tongue where the red mark had been. Along with it were lots more little white heads on the front of his tongue, along with a few more toward the back of his tongue.

Time to call the Dr.

While it was hard to diagnose over the phone, they suggested it must be hand, foot and mouth, or a similar virus. Either way, they don't treat it so we were to just watch it closely and give meds for pain as needed.

At the time he was just slightly whiny and clingy, so I did not worry much.

Boy did that change over the weekend. Those sores in his mouth must have really hurt. He stopped nursing and drinking, did not want to eat anything he had to chew, and just sat and cried for 5 -10 minutes at a time, especially when his pain meds wore off. My happy go lucky baby was gone.

Looking back, it really did not last long and he is now back to his happy self, but I was worried quite a few times that something major was wrong, by the way he carrying on.

Luckily I already had the week off of work for vacation, and we were able to get the counter tops done in spite of the clingy baby. Thank goodness for the backpack carrier.

School started on Monday in our beautifully newly remodeled school. So far I think both older boys are enjoying it.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry Ben is not feeling so great. I hope he is all better soon. glad you got some things done while on vacation. Those baby carriers really help out a lot when you need to get things done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh dear!! I hope he's better soon!

    When B went in for his surgery a couple of weeks ago, they noticed a white bump on the end of his tongue. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing, but I was really worried for a little while that we would have to postpone surgery b/c he had HFM!

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a comment to let us know you stopped by. We love hearing from you!