Interrupted

My Life Thus Far
2006-06-05 04:55:48 (UTC)

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

I stayed up until 1am last night cleaning. I got
everything done that I could at that ungodly hour of the
night. Laundry and vacuuming are inconsiderate things to
do when you live in such close quarters (condos). It felt
good waking up 7 hours later to a clean house and the
knowledge that the only thing I needed to do was wash 4
loads of laundry (which I did do) and push the "clean"
button on Roomba (my robotic vacuum's) remote control. I
was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

That warm feeling of satisfaction was quickly wiped off my
face when I went to retrieve Kiki from her crib. Her mouth
was covered in blisters. Upon closer inspection, I
discovered the same blisters on her plams and the soles of
her feet. She wasn't too happy about them, either. I went
online, did a little research and discovered that my baby
has Hand, foot and mouth disease. One of a series of
Coxsackie viruses. Thankfully, the least serious of them
all (the most serious causing meningitis or endocarditis
and infection of the membrane around the brain or the
membrane around the heart, respectively). Since there's
really nothing a doctor can do about it, it's just got to
run it's course (which takes anywhere from 2-10 days), I
just did all I could do to make her comfortable. I gave
her frequent, cool baths. Kept her hands and face clean,
applied some left-over nipple cream on her blisters
(nipple cream is the purest form of lanolin and is great
for skin ailments), I sanitized her hands frequently (so
she couldn't spread the virus around on surfaces. It can
live for 3 days outside of the body. I don't want to have
to deal with this again in 3 days) and I gave her cold
teething rings to soothe the sores on the inside of her
mouth. I also gave her some Benadryl to control the
itching (if she had any, I'm not sure) and to help her
rest (it knocked her ass out). When she woke up, though.
She was a new baby. Her blisters started to crust over,
she was happier and didn't give me any trouble going to
bed. Now I know why she's been fussy the past couple of
nights. She was fighting a virus. I'm hoping she's only
got the 2 day virus, not the 10 day one, but we'll just
have to wait and see.

My Father sent me pictures of himself tonight. He looks
just as I remember, only about 20 years older. He'll be 50
this year. Snookums is exactly 20 years younger than him.
They share the same birthday, December 12. Isn't that a
crazy coincidence? They say woman marry men that remind
them of their father's. I guess that must be true to some
degree, even on a genetic level, since I don't really know
him any other way.

My dumb ass cat finally came home. Hungry, wet, covered in
pine needles and dead flowers. He was so hungry, he didn't
even mind Kiki chewing on his tail. He just kept on
eating. I'm guessing Kiki only had a mouthful of fur. But,
since Zeus hardly ever lets the baby near him, that was a
testament to just how famished he really was.

I suppose today wasn't such a bad day, after all. It
wasn't one of my best days (no day without Snookums is),
but it wasn't as hopelessly depressing as yesterday. It
was a middle-of-the-road kind of day. Which is fine with
me. Ciao.




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