Raining and Pouring

This past week has been one for the books.  It all began with Jackson's 4 year well-check on Monday during which the pediatrician noticed his glands were somewhat swollen.  Jack had also been complaining that his tongue hurt, but I just assumed he'd bitten it.  He was acting completely fine in all other aspects so I had no reason to suspect why his glands were swollen.  The ped. continued his routine exam and while looking in Jack's mouth he noticed a few red dots.  Bada-bing - he's suddenly diagnosed with the Coxsackie virus.  Again, I didn't notice any other symptoms so at that point I was not concerned at all... Maybe because I was too busy stressing about the 5 immunizations he had to have at the end of the appointment.  He ended up doing great and only cried a little bit.  It helped that he got a whole goody bag for being such a brave boy - and the BEST part is that he's now DONE getting immunized until he's 11 years old!  WOO HOO!  

So fast forward to Tuesday evening when Justin notices that Eddie looks like he's getting a diaper rash on his bottom.  We slathered him with butt-paste and put him to bed.  The next morning his rash was much worse than the night before which is completely unusual after putting the cream on all night.  I decided to load up the kids and head to the grocery store to buy a different brand of diaper rash cream to see if that would make a difference.  After deciding on the Desitin and checking-out I was loading Eddie into his car seat and noticed little white blisters on his feet.  I immediately thought he had been attacked by fire ants while he and Jack were out playing that morning, but it didn't make sense that he hadn't cried and come to show me.  (Fire ant bites hurt!)  I then noticed the same white blisters on his hands and knew something wasn't right.  When we got home I googled Coxsackie and lo and behold if that isn't the scientific name for hand, foot, and mouth disease.  While Jack had gotten an extremely mild form of the virus, Eddie had caught it and managed to get every symptom in the book.  By Thursday he had blisters all over in his mouth and was unable to eat, drink, or use his binky.  His hands, feet, and bottom were also covered with blisters and Justin and I spent three nights staying up until 1 a.m. with him and watching Happy Feet because he couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.  Poor little guy!  Thankfully, by Saturday evening he was feeling and looking much better, though Justin stayed home with him from Church today just to be certain the virus didn't spread to Eddie's nursery class.  I am VERY thankful this is a virus that, like the chicken-pox, once you have had it you (almost certainly) don't get it again.  

BUT WAIT!  It's Norah's turn now!  LOL!  Last night I was holding her and noticed that her big toenail looked like it was a little red and swollen.  She is very active and manages to tear her papery little toenails off by scratching her feet on the carpet so I guessed that she had probably been a little too aggressive at some point and tore the nail shorter than usual.  Moving on to this morning - at church I was cuddling her during Sacrament meeting and noticed that her toe looked much worse than it did the night before.  After Sunday school I tracked down the second counsellor in the bishopric (because he also happens to be a Physicians Assistant) and asked him to take a look at her toe.  He immediately diagnosed it as a severely infected ingrown toenail.  WHAT?!  He then advised me to take her in to the pediatrician as soon as I could because it was probably causing her quite a bit of pain (no wonder she didn't sleep well the night before!).  After church I got home and told Justin what was going on and then called the pediatrician's office to see when the weekend hours were.  They close at 1 p.m. and I called at 12:45 so the nurse told me to take Norah to Urgent Care and have a doctor look at it as soon as possible.  And so we went.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited (Justin was home with the boys watching the excruciatingly painful America vs. Brazil game).  When it was finally time for Norah to be seen the nurse took one look at it and exclaimed, "That really IS an infected toe!"  Did she honestly think I would make something like that up?!  She then said, "I saw the chart and it said 'infected toe' and I thought there's no way a 5 month old has an infected toenail, but look at that!  It's definitely infected!"  She took down Norah's information and then sent in the doctor who repeated the exact same sentiments the nurse had exclaimed:  "I didn't believe it was truly going to be infected!  I don't think I've ever seen an infected ingrown toenail on someone so young!"  Sweet.  

So the doctor lanced the toe and got a sample of the pus (gross - sorry) to send to the lab to test for MRSA.  Right now she thinks it's a Staph infection and Norah is officially on her first round of antibiotics ever.  So far so good.  I think it made her toe feel a lot better to have the pressure from the swelling drained.  She has a follow-up with her pediatrician on Tuesday to make sure the antibiotics are working. 

Here's to PRAYING that this week is better in the health department!