My battle with hand, foot, and mouth

Well it turned out that I was not only sick, but I was sick with maybe one of the most gruesome viruses out there, hand foot mouth. I ended up working more or less a full day on Friday thinking I had something like strep or a bad cold. My strep tests came back negative and I figured that I had something else.

Unfortunately, on Saturday the dreaded red spots on my hands and feet started to show up and I knew instantly that I caught HFM. Shit is a horrible virus that feels straight out of something you hear from the middle ages. You start out with a horrible fever and chills for 24-48 hours, and then once that subsides, the sores start showing up.

The sores start out itchy. Not as bad as a mosquito bite, but being that they are on palms and soles of the feet, it makes things a lot worse. Then the sores start to really sore up in the back of your throat making swallowing anything painful. Sleeping is tough as you’re constantly dealing with itchy palms and soles.

As such, I have not left the house since my Friday strep test mainly staying in my room. It hasn’t been a fun experience but I tried to make the best of it and really just relax, rest, and do nothing. While this is not a desirable circumstance to be lazy, I also realize that I simply just have not had the chance to do anything like this in many years.

I spent most of Saturday in bed alternating between watching movies and napping. Minus the whole feeling like shit thing, it was actually really nice to get some down time. Sunday was more or less of the same, but I sprinkled in productivity in half my day. I caught up on work and then booked our family vacation in October which I had been putting off for some time.

Of course, the most painful part of this is not being able to hang out with Colin. It was heartbreaking watching him crawl to me and want to hang out, but not being able to pick him up or hug him.

I’m hoping that in the next day or two, I’ll actually be able to be a human again and get out in the world. I’m making the best of it, but being locked up in a room isn’t something that I’m generally good at. Although, if I’m being honest, lots of parts of being locked in a room for the weekend was kind of nice. Maybe I should try being incredibly lazy more often.