coxsackie and bubbles

Blake recently came down with coxsackievirus. Scary sounding, right? Its other name is hand, foot, and mouth disease and it's pretty common among young children. Our week has been spent mostly indoors while we've bravely battled record-breaking fevers and a painful rash.

Blake is slowly getting back to his normal self today so we ventured outside today to do a little stoop-sitting and bubble blowing.

My name is Blake. And I have coxsackievirus. Yes, the rash on my face hurts.

Mom, the bubbles went all the way down there!

Did you see?!

Ok, no more pictures after this one.

Why don't you take a picture of me, Blake?

Thanks.

sick

I'm on my second bag of M&M's today. I bought both of them knowing I was going to eat them as soon as I got home. It's been that kind of morning.

To be honest, it all started around 8pm last night. I was reading Blake his bedtime stories when I noticed he kept sticking his tongue out like he had a hair in his mouth. I didn't think much of it and tried to fish around in his mouth to see if there was anything in there that shouldn't be. No luck. Before I laid him down I took him into the kitchen for a drink of water to clear out whatever was in his mouth that had become so bothersome. And then he puked.

All of his dinner. Refunded. (Note to Blake: Let's try chewing your food from now on, k?)

I yelled to Evan for backup as Blake stood and pointed to the contents of his stomach now occupying the kitchen floor saying, "ewwww!". We got that mess cleaned up and swapped the barfy pajamas for some clean ones. Blake didn't seem to think he was sick as he ran around and played like normal. Freak barfing? We at the Jordan household are veterans when it comes to barfing so we took his temperature, gave him some water and decided he was probably ok since he was acting like he felt fine. Into bed he went.

30 minutes later: vomit.

This required the changing of sheets and new pajamas.

More water, mess cleaned up, no sheets-just a towel this time-and he was off to dreamland.

And then he threw up again. At this point there wasn't much left in his little tummy and it was horrible to watch him struggle. We decided to get him some pedialite and keep him up for a while to see if he'd keep it down. We finally wised up and followed him around with a little bucket to catch any upchuck that might decide to spew from his little body. Sure enough, he threw up a few more times before conking out.

Evan and I hopped into to bed and I said a quick prayer for Blake to be able to sleep through the night.

At 1 a.m. I awoke to the sounds of, well, you know. I called a 24 hour nurse hot line to get some advice on what to do. I really didn't want to take Blake to the ER, but he could not keep anything in his stomach and he was so exhausted that I was getting nervous that he'd need medical attention immediately. The decision was made to wait a while longer to see if he'd go back to sleep, but he threw up again for the seventh time. I tried to call the on-call pediatrician, but didn't get a return call until 2 hours later. By that time Blake was asleep and it was 5:30 in the morning. He had been asleep for 2 hours so I thought it was ok to wait and take him to the doctor when they opened.

Blake woke up around 7 and ate a light breakfast before we headed to the doctor.

Diagnosis: chest congestion brought on by seasonal allergies and drainage of mucus into the stomach causing nausea.

Treatment: nebulizer treatments 3 times a day for a week, antibiotic once a day for 5 days, prescription cough medicine 2 times a day for 5 days, and allergy medicine once a day until the end of November.

The nebulizer treatment is enough to make me want to assume the fetal position and hum to myself.

Thus, 2 bags of M&M's consumed within minutes of each other.

last night

was the longest night of my life. Blake has had stuffy nose for a few days, so I've been debating whether to take him to the doctor. He hasn't had much of a fever and seems to be as happy as ever, just with a lot more stuff coming out of his nose than normal. So I don't know whether to attribute his stuffy nose to the weather, allergies to a new food, or something more serious. Because he still seems to be happy and doesn't have a fever anymore, I'm guessing he's ok. Doctor visit avoided (until next week when he has his 6 month check up).

Enter last night. I had been dealing with a sore throat and stuffy nose all day and attributed it to the night I stayed up with Blake until 4 am due to his stuffy nose. It seems when I don't get enough sleep whatever is lurking in the shadows of my cells decides to come out and take advantage of my weak immune system. I imagine it looks something like this:

source 

So while I tried to sleep last night, little green guy was wreaking havoc on everything above my shoulders. I went to bed feeling ok, but woke up shortly after I had fallen asleep to a fever/chills, an even worse sore throat, no possible way of breathing through my nose, and worst of all, my jaw was aching. I don't even know what it means if you have a cold and your jaw hurts but I can't imagine it's a good thing. So I laid awake in bed for most of the night just praying for the light to break through the window so this night would be over. I remember laying there with my mouth open (to breathe of course) and my eyes half shut. I knew I looked like a hot mess because I felt like a hot mess. I checked my phone and it was only 3 am. I stayed in bed listening to the wind blow and wondering if the storm had already come and gone. Then I thought, "Who cares about the storm. I'm dyin' here!" Finally around 4:30 I got up and took some medicine and laid on the couch for an hour. I think I probably got a total of 2 hours of sleep last night. Boo.

Luckily when I got up for the second time this morning to make Blake a bottle, I was feeling better. My jaw had stopped aching, my throat wasn't as sore, and I thought there was a chance I could actually sleep. So Blake and I took an early morning nap for a few hours and here we are. I still feel terrible, but it's mostly a stuffy nose now, which I feel like I can handle. I really don't want to go to the doctor, mainly because I don't have a doctor here so I'll have to find one and walk in the rain with my baby to the doctor's office. Boo on that too.