Nathan is sick again, this time with what we think is Coxsackie virus…hand, foot and mouth disease.  The last couple of nights have been pretty bad in the sleep department, in that he wouldn’t stay asleep unless he was in bed with me.  Day sleeps have been just as bad, needing to be rocked to sleep (or going to sleep in the car seat)  and waking as soon as anything changed.  The success rate of moving a sleeping Nathan in the last 48 hours have been 0, which is not like him at all.  I think my arms are about to drop off after rocking him back to sleep after almost every single sleep cycle since yesterday afternoon!

Whenever Nathan has been sick in the past he’s been comforted by being breastfed.  In fact, breastfeeding has been the single most successful way of comforting Nathan when upset, sick or hurt…until now.  The poor tyke has a swollen mouth, tongue and lips, blisters in his mouth as well, and seems to be unable to suck.  He seems to want to breastfeed (he brings me the tri-pillow that I feed him on which has been his way of requesting a feed for a long time now), but doesn’t even attempt it when given the opportunity.  He also has a few blisters on his feet, a couple on his hands, and many on his bum.  He’s getting a rash on his legs and arms now, and yesterday had a low-grade fever.  He dribbles like there’s a river coming out of his mouth, and he spends half the day crying inconsolably.

I took him to the GP today, and she told me to keep him away from other people and in particular other children so as not to spread the virus…that’s until the blisters are dried up.  She told me to get as much drink as possible into him, because the biggest risk is that he decides not to drink and she said some children end up in hospital to get rehydrated.  He’s drinking, but not as much as I would like as he’s only done 3 wees today (4 am, 11 am and 3 pm) and he normally averages about 1 every hour when he’s awake (though I guess the fountain coming out of his mouth could be a factor).  She also suggested baby Panadol on a regular basis to help relieve his discomfort, and she recommended not travelling to Melbourne today or tomorrow as we had planned.  She said if he gets worse to bring him back tomorrow, or take him to the Children’s hospital on the weekend.

So, unfortunately, it currently looks like our trip to Melbourne for Andrew’s dad’s 60th birthday is off.  I was looking forward to having a bit of time away (but not under the sad conditions of our last two recent trips to Melbourne).

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Health, Nathan's second year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.