A hotbed of disease and infection

As you can tell by the time, I'm up in the middle of the night. You wouldn't believe the day we had. I worked from home today (today being Monday) so in the middle of the day I decided to get in a quick walk on the treadmill. Given that this was the first time I had worked out in FOREVER, this was a big deal. I wanted to walk for an hour but at a pretty easy pace. About 30 minutes into it, the phone starts ringing off the hook. Finally, after about 4 phone calls and 57 minutes into my walk, I answered the phone. It was Ned. Daycare had been trying to call because Jack was ill. They believed he had something call hand, foot, and mouth disease. Apparently it is highly contagious and they needed us to come and pick him up from school. I freaked because it sounds horrible---HAND, FOOT, AND MOUTH DISEASE. Yikes!

Anyway, against my better judgment, I looked it up on the internet. This did nothing to make me feel better because the articles I looked at said in very rare cases HFM disease could turn into meningitis or encephalitis. Ned picked up Jack and brought him home for me to watch. Jack seemed perfectly fine and content. He was chipper and eating like a champ. We couldn't get a doctor's appt. until 5:40 pm and that was with another doctor in the practice, not our pediatrician. Given the fact that my research showed there was no medicine for HFM disease and that I wouldn't be delaying his receipt of medication, I cancelled the 5:40 pm appt and we are going Tuesday at 9:40am to see our doctor. Jack seriously doesn't seem sick at all. Here is the face of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease:

Because of the contagious nature of the disease, who knows when he will be able to go back to school.

Jack fell asleep in my arms this afternoon. He slept so long I watched an entire movie on Showtime called "Away From Her." It was an excellent movie but extremely depressing. You may have heard of it because Julie Christie (of Dr. Zhivago fame) received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She must be in her 60's and she is still so beautiful. Not "Christie Brinkley you can't believe she is 54 years old" beautiful, but an older kind of beauty. Anyway, the movie is about an older married couple. Christie plays the wife and she has Alzheimer's. At her request, her husband puts her in a home for people with the disease. She develops a bond with another patient and her husband becomes kind of a third wheel. The movie was based on a short story by Alice Munro called "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." I just read it; it's pretty moving. Here's the link.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/12/27/1999_12_27_110_TNY_LIBRY_000019900
Between Bear's strep, Jack HFM disease, and the Alzheimer's movie, it's been a rough 24 hours. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

Love,
Allie