Hand, Foot & Mouth...

Parker started acting increasingly fussy this week refusing to eat food (throwing it instead!), crying hysterically for what appeared to be no reason, taking bad naps and waking up several times throughout the night.  Then on Tuesday he spiked a fever (103.4) and by Wednesday his little body was covered in a rash which on Thursday became sores.  We took him in to the doctor and they diagnosed him with Hand, Foot & Mouth...or as my dad was telling people...Ear, Nose & Throat!

The worst part of it all was the doctor said he had 15-20 sores in the back of his throat, and that is more than likely why he was not eating well.  We felt terrible because we had been being firm about him eating and not throwing his food, but he really was trying to tell us that he was in pain!  We immediately switched to soft foods only and shakes from McDonald's...Parker's new favorite!  By the weekend he was thankfully getting back to his normal self, but the doctor had warned us that he was very contagious for the first week, and we had plans to go to Big Star on vacation leaving on Saturday!  After a few phone calls we got it worked out that we would stay in the small cottage to contain Parker better and we would wait an extra day to come up.  We were relieved that worked out because the thought of missing out was so sad to us both!

By Wednesday he was pretty much free and clear and back to playing with all of his cousins.  It was a challenging week as we could not take him any where out of fear of him spreading it to another child!  I know I have a tendency to take a lot of pictures of everything, but I just couldn't get myself to take any pictures of Parks in such a sad state!  He was covered with sores around his mouth, all down his arms and legs and a few on his bottom.  It seemed like it started on his upper half of his body and as that healed it spread to his lower body.

This is the closest picture of him with his sores that I got.