HFMD-ed

Hello there. Currently, our little household have gone all quiet on the social and outdoor activities front as we experienced our first brush with hand, foot and mouth disease.

Anya has been diagnosed with HFMD for three days now. Thankfully, it appeared to be a mild case though the week has been rough as we dealt with confusions involving a wrong diagnosis (chicken pox!?!), dismay and uncertainties as we waited to see if the disease has spread to anyone else within the household (incubation period is 3-7 days), and fatigue as we took care of a whiny sick child who spent a large part of last night yelling in her sleep every twenty minutes.

Right now, it appears that the worse part is over for Anya. Her temperature is back to normal, most of the red spots on her body have disappeared and her runny nose has improved significantly. Other than those pesky painful ulcers that is causing her to cry at every mealtimes, she is pretty well.

In fact, she is quite the happy bunny right now because we are feeding her heaps of her favorite food (some of which are what we call junks) to make up for her loss of appetite during proper mealtimes. On top of that, she gets to wear whatever she wants. After all, if a girl is not feeling too good on the inside, the least we can do for her is to let her feel good on the outside, yes? Plus, in a bid to up the appeal of staying indoors, the Husband did a quick run to the library yesterday for new supply of books while I downloaded a few more new stuff on the iPad. Also, we have been conjuring silly or adrenalin-charged games along the way. Thankfully, she seems on track to recovery which means that we can probably shorten her quarantine period as we can see that the appeal of staying at home for the Tod is waning off despite all our efforts.

However, before we can heave a sigh of relief, Arielle is starting to exhibit similar symptoms as Anya, less off the red spots on her body. However, we are not sure if she has really caught HFMD as the Husband and I are hopeless in prying open babies' and toddlers' mouth and identifying ulcers. When morning comes, we are making another trip down to our trusty family doctor to make a diagnosis for her.

Till then, we are praying hard that everyone gets a goodnight sleep and that those vitamin Cs that the Husband and I are downing are doing a mighty fine job of strengthening our immune systems and keeping those viruses and diseases at bay.