James - Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

Over the winter we received a few notices from Maddie's daycare that a few classmates had contracted Hand Foot and Mouth disease (HFM). It's highly contagious and we have been waiting for the day she brought it home.

On Thursday 3/29, while changing James for bedtime, Joseph noticed he had little red spots forming around his mouth and on his legs and tummy. I said "oh no, I bet it's HFM!"  And sure enough, in the morning he had even more red dots and a fever. We kept Maddie home from school that day. Luckily (or unluckily!) it was her last day of school for a while as spring break was the following week.  I called the doctor's office and they said if Maddie didn't show any symptoms within 3 days, then she likely would not get it.

His spots started to spread and eventually got hard and almost scab like. He did not seem to be in too much discomfort though we did give him tylenol and advil for any pain/fever. Finally the rash stopped spreading a few days later, and he no longer had a fever - this meant he was no longer contagious!  The virus was making its way through!

Luckily the rest of us did not get it either!  Well, there is a chance we did since HFM has lots of different symptoms (some people just get a fever) but luckily none of us got the rash.  By the time Maddie went back to school the following week, he was no longer contagious, but still had rough skin from the rash.

Here are some pictures of James in good spirits, but covered in little red rough spots.