Hand, Foot, & Mouth Disease

When I picked Troy up from the playcare this afternoon, I noticed some red spots all around his mouth that absolutely weren’t there when I had dropped him off earlier. It looked exactly like Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, so I looked up the symptoms. Kids usually get a low-grade fever (99-100 degrees)…check…then they get cranky and irritable…check…then they get the sniffles and are constantly complaining that their nose is running…check…and they have a loss of appetite…check. Finally, around day 4, the little red sores show up. I’m going to take him to the doctor tomorrow to confirm, but I’m pretty certain that’s what he has.

Based on the timing of the rash, I’d surmise that he contracted the virus during his end-of-year party on Sunday. Which would make sense, since it’s highly contagious, and he was around and touching and playing in the water with a lot of different kids.

UPDATE: The doctor couldn't definitively say that it was HFMD, but she didn't rule it out either. Troy definitely has some sort of contagious virus. Oh, and she said that we'll probably get sick too, but that it will probably manifest itself as a cold, which is just fantastic considering that Troy has been kissing and licking on my face for the last three days!

UPDATE-UPDATE: I did in fact get sick. I started feeling bad Friday night, and I was sick all weekend with a cold just as the doctor said. So far, my wife has avoided going down with us.