Sick Baby Update

No one warns you about how emotionally draining it can be to have a sick child!  

After Hannah's fever went down, we started to notice that she was developing a rash.  Monday night was really rough - she was up every few hours and was basically inconsolable.  She spent much of the night sleeping on either me or Dan in her rocking chair.  

When we woke up on Tuesday, she was covered in a rash from head to toe.  I took her to the pediatrician, and we discovered that she had Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD).  Because she doesn't do anything half-way, she apparently also has an ear infection in her left ear.  Poor kid - no wonder she was so unhappy!

There is no treatment for HFMD other than letting it run its course and relieving the pain, so we've been giving Tylenol and ibuprofen around the clock.  Because of the sores in the mouth, it hurts for them to swallow, so at first she had copious amounts of drool coming out - she didn't even want to swallow her saliva.  We were worried about dehydration yesterday, so I gave her a couple of bottles (we had recently switched to just sippy cups, which was easier than we had expected - hopefully we can drop the bottle again in a few days without too much trouble).  Luckily she was willing to drink from the bottle so she had Pedialyte and milk that way.

She was herself again yesterday afternoon and we had a lot of fun playing together.  But she woke up this morning in a terrible mood and seems to be in pain again. She is so miserable, and I wish that there was something I could do to stop her from being in so much discomfort!  She doesn't understand what's going on, and it's hard to imagine.  It's also tough because she's so fussy and there's not much that will soothe her.

We've let her watch some tv (the Gustafer Yellowgold DVD we bought at the concert - see my previous post) and that seems to distract her for a little while, but overall she's just so grumpy.  :(

I really hope that we didn't pass it along to any of her friends.  I'm guessing she caught it at daycare, but I can't be sure.  When I called them to let them know she had it, they mentioned that someone else there had had it a few weeks ago.  I really wish that they had told us that in advance...