What do they have in common? They are the illnesses that Little Guy contracted in the month of September. That made September one of the toughest month for me, working mom, especially when it is end-of-quarter and I was out of office for customer visits and training for almost 1.5 week!
The main cause of such frequent illness really was the change in environment. Due to age cut-off, Little Guy was left behind for one more month so his age requirement meets regulation. A new group of children brought in a new group of illnesses and he got them all!
They all started out with slight sniffle and a fever. Actually, for Little Guy, it often comes with some form of cough and almost daily puke, due to his sensitive gag reflex. Because his history of ear infections, all three episodes also are always followed by me insist on taking him to see Urgent Care doctor, while feeling guilty for wasting medical resources for a common cold. And then we found out at the doctor's that something slightly more serious than a common cold has happened.
Here are my thoughts and summary on these three:
HFMD
Supposedly everyone gets it a little differently, but it often starts with a fever, which is what Little Guy got. For children, it often followed by mouth sores, little blisters on palm or bottom of their feet, but sometimes on arms and legs. The tricky part is, because toddlers cannot describe how they feel yet, it is often hard to know they have mouth sores until way later! However, one very telling sign for Little Guy was when he refused his favorite home-made cookies! Since his mouth sores are all at the back of his throat, we didn't even know it was HFMD until the doctor looked into his mouth!
There isn't a remedy for HFMD, but several key things to remember:
- Keep them hydrated! The biggest immediate danger for HFMD for toddlers and babies is that they refuse to eat and drink, and therefore gets dehydrated. Monitor their wet diapers closely. They should have at least one wet diaper per 8 hours.
- Around the clock pain meds. If you ever had canker sore, you'll know when it hurts, it really hurts! So mange the pain well is one key to recovery quickly.
- If the mouth sores are bad, give them some liquid ant-acid. The way liquid ant-acid coats stomach ulcers works for mouth sores too. After 2 days of forcing liquid in any form (water, milk, juice, ice cream...) down his throat, we learned from an advice nurse about the ant-acid. We tried and it worked wonders! They said to give it after he eats, but I often do it before so he won't feel the pain caused by the food as much.
Other than these, there isn't much you can do but ride it out!
Croup
Bad cough, really bad cough. They'll sound like seal barking. So when you hear it, you know it! Never hurt to double-check with doctors though. Croup is basically a cold virus that affects the throat area instead of sinus area. So Little Guy didn't have much nasal discharge, but the cough was horrific! And because he pukes at the slightest of coughs, it was around the clock laudr-o-mat at our house. Other than that, it's the same wait-it-out story.
Pneumonia
By-product of some other respiratory disease, but we couldn't really self-identify until the doctor ordered a chest x-ray. The reason doctor suspected it was that he was coughing, had a fever of 101.5, breathing hard, low blood oxygen (lower than 93%), but no wheezing (which would have been asthma). X-ray confirmed 100%. So now he's on Motrine for fever control and antibiotics for eradicating the bacteria.
On the flip side of things, while Little Guy's weight went down to 20th percentile, his height shot up to 71st percentile, which means despite the illnesses, he is still growing like a weed!
