Our first brush with lurgies

I was bracing myself for the first round of childhood diseases but wasn’t expecting them quite so soon! Leo is now just seven months old and we have recently recovered from the apparently very common childhood disease hand, foot and mouth disease. So common in fact, that not one single person I have discussed this with has ever frigging heard of it?! What everyone has heard of, of course, is foot and mouth – that horrific disease where poor farmers had to heap up hundreds of heads of livestock and set fire to them, to prevent them from becoming ill….. not sure I follow the logic, but then I’m not a farmer and I believe them largely to be good people so I’ll leave that one there. Anyhoo – so Leo didn’t start mooing, but he did develop a nasty cough (which I put down to teething), he went off his food completely (which I put down to teething), he stopped sleeping through the night (which I put down to teething) and was generally grizzly (which I put down to teething). You see, unfortunately, teething is a bit of a “catch all” for babies and it is easy to become apathetic even for the most hawk eyed Mummies amongst us. After two hard weeks of Leo not sleeping and not eating his Dad noticed spots on the back of both hands. The guilt I felt was quite extraordinary….. I’m not a Mary Poppins type Mummy, I’m terribly impatient and I swear. Frequently. I’ve been incredibly blessed and lucky with Leo in that he has slept through the night since he was about 3 months old – I know, I know, I’m very lucky. So two weeks of no sleep was a hell of a shock and I stumbled in to his room every 1-2 hours to try and comfort him and correct whatever was preventing him from sleeping, to no avail, which ended with me slumped over the cot at 4am muttering “for fuck’s sake – there’s nothing wrong with you!” (“and the parent of the year award goes to…..”) Hence the guilt – turns out my poor boy had actually been ill all of that time.

But what had he got? Well. That bit pissed me off. It took THREE trips to the GP to finally get this diagnosed. I did my normal nurse Mummy bit and went on to NHS direct website (very, very good) to try and pinpoint the illness. A lot of doctors do the same, they can’t remember everything understandably. So my first trip to our lovely family GP I presented Leo’s spots and declared “I think this is hand, foot and mouth.” (I did the same the day before to a pharmacist – who thought it was chicken pox). My doctor ummed and ahhed and said it was probably chicken pox based on the one chicken pox like spot on his wrist. The other spots were small and red and didn’t appear to be bothering him. I left the surgery unsatisfied and was on the phone at 8am the next morning to get another same day appointment. This time I could dramatically show off the same red marks spreading all over my own hands. Still chicken pox he said – and I also got a rather unreassuringy “so what do you think it is? Hand, foot and mouth?”  I was rather hoping you would tell me?! On my third visit my opening gambit was “are you absolutely sure this is chicken pox?!” luckily I’ve known my GP for 20 years and he’s a very good egg – so I can be blunt with him. I showed off the now quite severe rash on my hands, soles of my feet and the horrid white spots at the back of my very sore throat (no wonder my poor baby was coughing, these really hurt) and he frowned and muttered and walked out of the room…. seconds later he reappeared with another doctor whom I did not know but he looked a decent sort of chap, think his name was Peter? Peter had a good look over my hands and throat and said with the conviction I’d been craving “that is hand, foot and mouth disease” – hurrah! A diagnosis! My reason for being quite such a pain in the arse about the whole thing was wanting to know exactly what Leo had had so in the future I’ll know what he is still susceptible to. I personally think he may also have had chicken pox at the same time, but very mildly hence the one pox like spot on his wrist. Time will tell if I’m right on that one though.

When Leo was 3 days old he very nearly died before my eyes. I won’t go in to too much detail but his blood sugar plummeted and he had rolling seizures. He went in to A&E and we all stayed in HDU and then the children’s ward at Royal Berks in Reading for nearly two weeks. Utterly terrifying in every sense of the word. The reason for mentioning this is I believe that when handing him over to the medical professionals in such a vulnerable state – one has to have utter faith in their ability and complete trust in their judgement. Unfortunately for my GP – this means that I now expect strong, cast iron diagnosis’ with every rash and sniffle that Leo presents – this I know is an impossible ask! What the recent few weeks have cemented in my little brain - rather terrifyingly – is that the buck stops with me. I am solely responsible for this precious little boy and I am the one who will make these monumental decisions for him. It’s an awesome, in the true sense of the word, realisation. Although I do not consider myself a single parent, there are two of us and Daddy is as involved and attentive as he is physically, emotionally and mentally able to be, but I am a single Mum – I am eyes and hands on 24/7 and thus, as previously mentioned, the buck stops with me. Holy fuck.

I’m fast coming to realise that there are no casual decisions to make when it comes to being a parent, one lurches from one agonising decision to another almost holding your breath and hoping a lot of the time. MMR?! What the hell to do?! We were all vaccinated – we’re all fine aren’t we? Daddy made a valid point the other day – if we all had the MMR jabs how come we all had measles? I don’t know the answer – dammit?! I know that I have 5 months until the next lot of jabs are due so I have my reading list cut out for me and after that one just hopes that the best, most informed decision possible is made. There is no denying that without modern medicine we would have lost our little boy at three days old so you won’t find me jumping on the bandwagon and berating the NHS.  That said – there’s also no denying that vast amounts of the reports that are presented to us are corrupt to say the least which makes it harder to ascertain the absolute facts. Case in point being the recent health advise to begin weaning at 4 months – the information in that report kindly funded by the likes of Cow & Gate, quelle surprise! Take a closer look into the government’s 5 a day, don’t eat animal fat type campaigns and you’ll find they are funded by the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the market leading anti cholesterol drug….. how does one find the truth?!

I digress…..

I suspect this parenting lark doesn’t get easier, that the worry stays with you forever – even when they’re big, strong, fully grown bruisers – but I wouldn’t change a thing. Leo is an extraordinary little boy and I would always take a bad day with him over a good day without him.