Hand, Foot, and Mouth, Oh My!

Shortly after my surgery in October, Charlie came down with a bad fever and a curious rash on his feet. After a trip to our favorite Doctor Dove, it became clear that our little man had caught the dreaded Hand Foot and Mouth disease! Blast! I had never even heard of this blasted virus until a few years ago when various friends all around the facebook world had kids come down with it and I decided that I never wanted that woe to come upon us! But alas, it did. For about a straight week he had a high fever and got spots on his feet and legs and hands that weren't too bad but bad enough to stop him from walking.

Out on a walk as a family with Char riding in luxury

Thankfully, they never got weepy....which is a pretty gross description.

But just when he seemed to be getting better, he started complaining of major pain in his hand. Everyday the pain became worse and worse until he was taking the absolute max amount of ibuprofen and Tylenol round the clock. After a couple days we noticed that his middle finger started to swell up and so we took him back to the doctor's office for a follow up. They were as mystified as we were and had us come in daily until the swelling started to subside.

James's wedding ring almost couldn't even fit on his swollen little digit!

Thankfully, after a handful of weeks, Charlie was able to stop waking up every couple of hours at night for pain and started using his hand again. We were thrilled to have the rotten episode behind us and were thrilled that none of our other boys got it!

But then a full month later, Coobie came down with a high fever that was followed by red spots on his feet. Boo! 

This boy became sick so suddenly that we took him in to the E.R. because he was complaining of a major headache and we were worried that it was meningitis.

Thankfully, Coobie (like his older brother, Char) quite enjoyed the special treatment and endless amount of popcycles and Donald Duck classic Disney cartoons. 

So, while he wasn't sleeping, he did quiet activities:

Wearing glasses makes you look so smart, don't you think? Especially when it is paired from a kimono from a beloved godmother

And lounged around:

Can you tell that he was lapping it up?! Being an invalid came easy to this little yellow personality and I was surprised that he never pulled a Secret Garden and claimed he had a hump on his back to further her pampering.

And when it all would get too much for the little guys, we would do our best to cheer him up:

But just like with Char, after Coobie's symptoms started to recede, suddenly his right foot started hurting and then eventually swelled up until he couldn't walk at all. This time round, we were referred to the infectious disease specialists at the Children's hospital in Kansas City, Missouri because our doctors were again flummoxed. But when we went in for our appointment, the doctors there said that he had to be admitted and put under so that he could have an MRI on his little ankle joint. 

We bought a little stroller for the occasion since my knee was not strong enough to be able to hoist this boy all over Missouri. 

This news was completely unexpected and I wanted to cry, but Coobie took the news in stride:

The children's hopsital was amazing and there were sorts of kind people there. One person offered Coobie these fancy sunglasses while we were being admitted and he was thrilled since he had just told me that he wanted a pair of sunglasses for Christmas!

After exploring his hospital room, it was decided that we should all be jealous of McCabe:

That was until he had to get jabbed in the arm 7 times in an hours period of time while they tried to get blood and put in an I.V.

McCabe, before he woke up from his procedure. He got that little swoosh in his hair from all of the nurses petting his cute little head.

That part made us all very sad:

Thankfully, James and I were able to switch each other out so that one of us could be with our Coobie while his team of specialists tried to figure out what was wrong with him. They knew that he had osteomyelitis (a bone infection) in his ankle that was causing the pain and swelling but they didn't know why and refused to believe that it was linked to hand foot and mouth.

The room services there was amazing.

midnight special-time

McCabe was initially thrilled to be in the hospital with so many nice nurses doting on him, his own tv with cartoons, and a bed that went up and down (that he called a "taco bed" because folded almost in half), but after so many pokes and prods and painful IV drugs, he shut down. Every time a nurse would come in the room he would wail out of fear that she would bring more pain. It was heartbreaking.

After a couple of days, when I asked how much longer he needed to stay, one of the doctors on his team said that it was not until he was walking again and I just wanted to scream! McCabe had made zero attempts to leave his bed and would only wimper when anyone asked him to stand on it. On top of that, I had just found out that he had not been receiving pain meds for most of his stay since they had to be requested by me and they never mentioned it besides the first day when they said that they would give it through his IV. So he was admitted for strange pain in his foot but was not given medicine to ease the pain....and wasn't walking because he hurt too bad! So frustrating! We had been giving him round the clock pain meds at home so it began to make sense that he was doing so poorly in the hospital. I suppose I should have been more concerned for the health of my son, but I knew it was the same strange pain and swelling that Char had (just in a more serious place) and that it would resolve like his did, especially with the help of modern medicine.

As nice as the place was, we were tired of it all and wanted to be home with brothers. The first step I did to make this happen was demand pain killers. Once that started taking effect, I bribed him with home and candy and the next thing I knew, he was hobbling around like an old man! Hot dog! Just as we were taking a turn around his hospital wing, his entire team came onto the unit and witnessed "the miracle" of him being up on his feet (they thought it was weeks away. Who knew pain management could be so effective?) and gave us the good news that since they couldn't figure him out and he was now walking, he was free to be discharged as soon as he successfully started his oral doses of antibiotics. I was OVER THE MOON! That is, until I realized that the antibiotics were so foul that they literally made him throw up. Three attempts were made and three attempts were violently puked up. We mixed it with puddings and juices but nothing worked. Thankfully, just when I was losing all hope, a kind doctor suggested mixing it with Hershey's chocolate syrup and McCabe exclaimed, "It tastes like marshmallows!"

So we said our goodbyes to the kind people at Mercy, picked up his many-bottled prescription, and made the 2+ hour drive home to family. After a whole month of mixing his drugs (that smelled like ripe Andy Gumps) with equal parts chocolate syrup (we went through 5 bottles of syrup), Coobie was finally deemed healed!
We are so grateful for kind people who chose to go into the health industry. Especially those people who take care of children. It was so amazing to be there and witness their outpouring of love and patience. It was also incredibly humbling to see families with children who's health concerns were far more serious than ours soldier on so bravely. I am so grateful for health!  

All that said, hand, foot, and mouth disease, please never visit us again!