Joys of Childcare

One of the joys of childcare is having to become immune to every germ that comes through! Although I love CR's "school" and think it has been great for him, all the germs are a hard pill to swallow (for all of you know I am a germ freak). They all seem to enter our household at the most inopportune times. We have been graced with the runny nose, sore throats, stomach flu at Christmas, and then this past week...the dreaded hands, foot, and mouth disease. As a former 4th and 5th grade teacher, I have heard of this before, but thankfully have had no run-ins with it...well until now.



CR spent the night with Auntie Kim last Saturday night and was very clingy Sunday AM when we picked him up, so we let him stay in "big church" with us as he wished (instead of going to the nursery). Thank goodness we did! He was an angel, but we just assumed he was tired and missed us. Little did we know he had the onsets of this sickness. Even Sunday afternoon, I noticed bumps on his bottom (a heat rash I thought), so I let him run nude outside (noted in a previous post). Then while we were outside I even noticed some bumps on his feet (I just thought was there from playing in the grass). He had no signs of bumps anywhere else, so it never crossed my mind it may be this. I wish his teachers would have warned me that this was going around the classroom for almost a month now. Evidently, they are unaware of the severity of this sickness and how easily it is spread. I do feel better though knowing where it came from (after talking to his teacher and a friend). I was feeling guilty thinking that he caught it by taking him to Carowinds.



Monday, he didn't eat very much and I could tell with his behavior something was not right, so I scheduled a Dr. appt. for him for Monday. He was diagnosed with an ear infection and she noticed a bump on his tongue and said it looked like he bit it. After not eating the rest of the day Monday or barely drinking, I had a hard time believing that his throat wasn't hurting, so we return to the Dr. again Tuesday morning (to pay again...yipee!) When she looked in his mouth, blisters were everywhere. The poor thing had them all over his gums, tongue, and throat. No wonder he couldn't eat or drink! We spent the better part of the week attempting to make him drink (forget eating). Thankfully, we succeeded in getting enough in him to keep him from getting dehydrated.

He is back to his old self now and making up for the lost time of no eating! Now we just have to see an ENT Dr. for his snoring and constant ear infections.
Thankfully we were not around any of our pregnant friends during this time, as they could have been exposed and very dangerous.