Our plan is to return Bradley to school tomorrow. It’s been ten days at home as he’s battled through this Hand, Foot, Mouth disease. His sisters have battled as well. With them we know how they’re doing because they tell us and we see the blisters in their mouths...still today. Bradley can only tell us by how he acts. It’s hard for sure.
The girls are still suffering sore throats, and with no other symptoms there’s only so much Motrin and Tylenol they can take to help, and even then it hasn’t been enough. Salt water gargling, fluids, hot and cold...ice cream, popsicles, sherbet...hot lemonade and even tried lime juice and honey in warm water to help their throats (that numbs it short term by the way).
As for Bradley, lots of cold stuff: smoothies, ice cream, sherbet, and popsicles. And we tried to keep track of his moods; trying to redirect as his frustration overtakes him and he starts losing it. At those points, we just took the time to sit down with him, snuggle him close and usually he took a nap. At one point this last week, I was trying to do his meds and change his diaper. I got as far as getting him down to his onesie, and he wouldn’t stop crying. Long, loud wails that were just tearing at me. So I picked him up, sat down on his bed and wrapped him in his weighted blanket, we snuggled close and I just rocked him, and waited. Within five minutes, he had stopped crying, he settled in against me. Another five minutes and he was fast asleep, his head on my shoulder and his fingers holding onto the blanket. Red flag that he just wasn’t feeling very good at all.
Seeing Madison and Sydney still fighting the pain of the symptoms- I’m grateful Eric and I decided to not send him to school the rest of the week, I didn’t realize how long these effects actually last. Some lessons take a long time to learn what we know now...knowing now, we wouldn’t have even given it a consideration. I am wondering to if letting Madison make it back to school so quickly has been worth it. She fought her way back once her fever broke because she had no blisters anywhere, although a wicked painful sore throat. This weekend we saw the blisters in her mouth. Poor kid.
Sydney missed the whole week because she couldn’t kick the fever. And then she got a few blisters on her hands and feet. And though those have faded and are going away - she is still holding on to the horrible sore throat. But she plans to return to school tomorrow and hopes to get caught back up and get back into the swing of things.
I’m nervous about Bradley giong too school, a little bit about Sydney too. The good news is, Bradley sees the doctor tomorrow afternoon, and then the girls are going to the doctor on Tuesday. Follow up is imperative so things get better, especially because Bradley and Sydney have been down this road before when they both moved from Hand and Foot to Strep, but for Bradley - he got Strep again after Strep that then went into a Sinus Infection that resulted in a diaper rash that would take us a year to overcome. Dear God, please don’t let us go back down that road. We just need to get three healthy kids back in this house and then keep moving forward.
Somehow, we have to get through a first band concert on Tuesday and then determine if/when/what will be our Halloween festivities this year. If throats are still sore or tender, they may each get a tub of their favorite ice cream to eat over what I hope would be a few days and call it a win... For right now, Wednesday seems like a lifetime away, right now...one day at a time.
On a sad note, baseball is over and we have to wait until April (or is it March again?); whatever, for the games to begin again. But at least on a weekend where all the plans had to be cancelled in order to help some kids heal and try to get better, we had baseball to watch.
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