Coxsackie Virus

Poor Ryan came down with Coxsackie virus last week. Also known as Hand Foot and Mouth disease as its mainly recognized by small red itchy blisters covering the child's hand feet and around and inside the mouth. For the first few days Ryan was pretty sick so i took him to the ER. He had recently been at a birthday party and the child was recovering from viral meningitis which started with spots that looked exactly like Ryan. After some Internet scanning I found out that HFM is the leading cause of viral meningitis in children! Luckily as Ryan didn't have a high fever etc the dr didn't suspect meningitis thankfully. Ryan did have a particularly bad case of HFM as his spots were all over his body and very red and angry. Even after a week off school he still has many spots but most of the blisters have now scabbed over. Will probably take another week or so for them to disappear completely. Just in time for Santa!    Im so not ready for Christmas at all this year. Ryan being off school has really put us behind schedule and we had to cancel all the Christmas activities I had arranged for Ryan so it doesnt even feel like Christmas is just around the corner. Luckily the tree is finally up, and being tortured by the kittens who have already eaten their way through one set of lights. And we did get Ryan to see Santa as one of the shopping centres has a Santa for Special Needs each Sunday which doesnt have long lines and is available before the the shops even open. Its the little things that make such a big difference in life sometimes.