1 Oct 2013

Pestilence

Last week we had our first case of the dreaded hand, foot and mouth disease.  I mean gross.  It sounds disgusting (mad cow disease anyone?!) but actually wasn't as bad as I thought.  I think we got off lightly.  Touch wood.

According to trusty ol' WebMD it takes a few days to get the tell tale blisters and this is usually after a lengthy 'incubation' period.  Double gross.

Basically we hung out with our usual little dude friends on the Thursday, he was fine. I went away and had my party weekend (more on that later) I got back and he seemed fine.  Didn't sleep much but the Juffin put it down to me being absent and Mushroom just generally being a cranky one.  On Monday the Mushroom went off to his Meme's house like usual. We'd had a bit of a disturbed evening but I thought teething again.  Tuesday was when all the drama went down.

After 3 hours sleep on Monday night I really should have known that he was sick.  I mean what kind of bad mother am I?  Again, I just assumed it was teeth.  I mean teeth are to blame for everything! 

I dropped him off at daycare after being cried at for an hour.  We were half an hour late.  And he fell asleep in the car on the way over there.  He NEVER does that.  He then STAYED ASLEEP when I put him down in his portacot.  Wow. 

I went off to work, thinking holy shit, glad that's over.  Around 11.15 I got a call from the daycare Mum saying that he was inconsolable.  I could actually hear him screaming in the background. She wanted to know if ok to give paracetamol and I said sure, but wasn't convinced that that was exactly why she'd rung.  She sounded stressed.  I immediately said I would come and get him but she was all coy and like no it's ok we can do this, but I wasn't convinced.

I raced out of work and picked him up. Poor little Mushroom had the reddest face and his eyes were all puffy.  Apparently he just wouldn't settle all morning.  Crying, wouldn't calm with cuddles, stories, dummy nothing.  She seemed to think it was teeth too, but just said he was off all morning.  In that moment I just felt like the shittest parent in the whole World.  I mean why the f am I going to work when my boy is crying at someone elses house?  Why didn't I just stay home that day when he kept crying at me?  Why didn't I know that something was wrong? 

On the way home we stopped in at the chemist and I got some baby paracetamol as his little head felt a little hot as did his chest.  He had a rash on his legs but Juffin said that they'd been playing in the park and it was just irritated from the grass.... um, no.  First sign of disease is a rash douchebags. 

The afternoon was pretty uneventful, I had to lay down with the Mushroom in my bed to get him to have an afternoon nap but he seemed ok after paracetamol and cuddles with his Mum.  He was then up for most of the night, hot, crying, wouldn't settle.  Egads.  This was terrible.  I went to the Dr first thing on Wednesday morning as there were blisters on his feet now.  Obviously hand foot and mouth.

I was off work for the week.  The whole week with my sick little Mushroom.  And the sad thing is, even though he was sick, he seemed happier.  He was happy playing by himself, he slept very well during the day (let's not talk about the night sleeping) and he seemed much happier overall.  No screaming at me from the floor of the kitchen, no crying when I put him down and left the room....  It just made me feel even worse about working and leaving my son with other people for 5 hours of every weekday.

I'm hoping that I can win lotto.  Or find a money tree.  Or discover that I'm actually really good at something that I've somehow missed in the last 32 years and capitalise on my awesome special skill... I'm pretty sure eating pasta in record quantities ain't going to make me no money!

A sick little Mushroom sleeping on his Mama 

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