We Survived HFMD

Have you ever heard of HFMD (Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease)? Not so luckily I have (through experience). It's a nasty virus that leaves very painful blisters on the inside of your mouth and throat and not so painful blisters on your hands and feet. My husband and I have both had it...twice. His experience left him twenty pounds lighter. So, you can only imagine how afraid we were when Scamp came down with it.

Saturday she started complaining about her mouth hurting when we were eating lunch at the pool. She even insisted on throwing her icee away unfinished because of the pain. But, I didn't discover the blisters in her mouth until that night.

She refused to eat much by Sunday, the day we started giving her children's ibuprofen for the pain. She doesn't take medicine well, so you can imagine how heart-breaking it was to give her liquid medicine that caused her mouth to hurt even more upon taking it.

We put her to bed upstairs Sunday night, but she woke up crying in pain. We then put her in bed with us and she proceeded to cry out in her sleep about every hour and a half for most of the night.

Monday morning was looking up when she was able to eat ice cream for breakfast, the only good thing about having HFMD, so we forwent taking her to the doctor. But, by mid-day she was in pain again and not on the verge of dehydration we hoped. Anxious, we called her doctor to see what the signs of dehydration were. If she hadn't used the bathroom by 4:00 o'clock, we were instructed to bring her in.

Read the second half tomorrow.