I Got Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease

Corgan is doing great after her run in with hand, foot, and mouth disease last week.  I, however, am still on the road to recovery. The typical symptoms of this awfulness are supposed to be high fever, red sores on your hands, feet, and mouth (duh!), rash, sore throat, loss of appetite, and a "feeling of being unwell."  Corgan suffered from everything except the "feeling of being unwell." She breezed through her illness, even the fever and sores part, like a total trooper!  She had one afternoon of fussiness and that was because she didn't eat lunch.  She's been back at day care for a week, and she really had no idea that she was supposed to be a mess!  Some kids are actually hospitalized because the pain and discomfort is too much to control at home.  Wow,wasn't she lucky? Well, I had a completely different encounter with this nightmare.

The Friday of Corgan's at-home-time, I found a pock on my finger.  I couldn't quite tell if it was a sore from getting the virus or a bug bite, so I didn't make a big deal of it.  The next day, I had one on my foot and some more on my other hand.  I did the good 'modern woman' thing and Googled it.  Adult symptoms are supposed to be way less severe than children.  Great! No worries!  I had a big event at school on Monday so I would go to the event, keep away from hugging or high-fiving people, and go work from home after that.

Ha, that's funny!  I got home around 10:00 AM on Monday morning after my early morning event at school, and I started to work.  My bosses are totally awesome and agreed to let me work from home during the incubation period.  I had planned on staying home thru Wednesday, returning to work on Thursday with everything ready to get prepped for Easter (I work at a church, remember?)  What could go wrong with this plan?  The worst part so far was that my entire family was telling people that I had hoof and mouth disease.

By 11:30 AM, my hands were starting to tighten and tingle.  90% of what I do requires me to use my computer, but the tips of my fingers were starting to feel really weird so typing was getting difficult.  I decided to lay down on the couch and take a break.  Bad idea.  Little by little, my hands and feet were getting worse.  It started getting to the point where it felt like ants were crawling under the skin in my palms and souls of my feet.  But they weren't really painful yet.  I finished out my day on the coach, and my mother-in-law (in all her awesomeness) drove me to day care to pick up my daughter because it was getting difficult to use my hands.  Walking was getting painful, too.

That evening my husband came through with flying colors!  He cooked dinner, watched the kiddo, gave her a bath, cleaned up the kitchen, and put her down, all while I watched from afar.  My hands and feet were driving me crazy!  And they were starting to get painful.  I had taken some Ibuprofen earlier, but it wasn't touching it. I went to bed at 9:00 PM in hopes to sleep through some of the discomfort, but that was a terrible idea!!! Being in a room with no lights, no sounds, and no distractions was the stupidest move I could have made.  The pain reared its ugly head!  I began clenching my hands together as hard as a could to stop the 'ant' feeling, but it wasn't doing any good.  10 minutes of lying there was like hours, so I got up with tear-filled eyes and hobbled downstairs to ask my husband to call the nurse's line for our insurance.  Hand, foot, and mouth was not supposed to be this bad in adults.  This disease that hadn't phased my 15 month old was kickin' my butt!

Stuart called the nurse line and was told we would receive a call within the hour to go over my symptoms.  We turned on the TV and waited.  It sucked.  Each moment I was waiting was as if hundreds of matches were being lit on my hands and feet and there was nothing I could do.  We were wrapping my extremities in cold, damp cloths, but that only worked for about the first 10 seconds.  I was in pain to the point that I was holding back whimpers and screams, and Stuart couldn't do anything to help.  Literally.  He couldn't even come hold me because we didn't want to risk spreading this awful thing to him, too. So I sat on the couch in the fetal position, crying and rocking, waiting for the stupid nurse line.  After and hour and thirty minutes we made the tough call to wake up my mom and see if she could come stay with Corgan while we went to the emergency room.  She didn't even question it.  She woke up (yes, it was 11:00 PM), packed up all her stuff for work in the morning, and got to our house within 30 minutes.  God bless her!  I can only imagine what I must've looked like when she walked in the door.

Stuart rushed me to the emergency room near our house, and luckily there was no one else there. It's a new facility that is a stand alone ER so I don't think it's well known.  The ridiculous part was that the first 20 parking spots were handicapped so we had to park in the back 40 of an empty parking lot and hobble up to the front.  Bad planning.  We were in a room withing 10 minutes (paperwork took a while), and the doctor was bed-side a minute after that.  Here came the interesting part.  I had to explain the pain for a disease that adults rarely get, and which should have no pain associated with it!  The doctor was incredibly nice and understanding, but I looked insane.  I showed him the growing red welts on my hands, and offered to show my feet.  I explained that my daughter had breezed through the virus without a peep, and I explained that I would be in less pain if I chopped off my hands and feet with a machete. 

After a drug screening (rightfully so) and an IV, I received the most wonderful gift! My veins were pumped full of dilaudid and benadryl!  Oh the joyousness!!!  (It's a week later and the thought of the relief the drugs brought is still making my eyes tear up!)  We stayed for about an hour after they administered the drugs to make sure I wouldn't react negatively, then they sent me home with a pain prescription to pick up the next day.  I went home in hopes of sleeping, but found that the benadryl did nothing, so I slept in 20 minute chunks.  I would slather lotion onto my hands and feet and cover them with socks (hands, too).  That would calm the itching for about 20 minutes and let me sleep.  Then it would stop working and wake me up.  I would reapply, re-sock, and go back to sleep. Repeat about 100 times and that was my night.

I spent the next two days slowly coming back to myself.  The pain was bad enough to stay on hydrocodone all the next day, but by Wednesday I was off pain meds. The red welts finally turned skin color yesterday, but they are all callousing over and peeling.  I don't have 100% of the feeling back in my finger tips as most of them are a peeling mess, but I'm hoping to return to normal within the next week.

Reflection: Holy Week is the busiest time of year for anyone who works in a church.  Forget Christmas.  That's just two extra services.  Holy Week can be upwards of 7 extra services and that's if you go to the bare minimum.  Plus brunch. Plus egg hunt.  Not to mention, I was just coming off two major projects at work for the school.  And I was feeling the crunch to get stuff done at home.  I was on a 'frantic' high in every aspect of my life, which tends to happen every few months or so.  How does God force me to slow down? Give me a major reaction to a mild disease that shouldn't even be contagious to me. What better way to slow down than to lose the use of your hands and feet for 48 hours? For about a week, I had no choice but to accept help from my loved ones, and I not 'do' anything.  Even at work, I had to rely on the willing help of a co-worker to get all the bulletins and media completed for all our extra services.  Now that I'm almost fully functional, its making me realize how wonderful the people in my life are and how lucky I am to work where I do.  Where else can you be out for a week and not have your bosses bug you or nag you? Instead, they lovingly send prayers of recovery and healing.  I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love my family. I love my friends. I love my co-workers. I love my bosses. I love my job. I love my life.