There's a high probability Mister Riku picked this up at daycare, since he started showing symptoms 3 days after being there, and we had a phone call from them to say that several kids there had come down with it in the last week. Luckily he had a pretty mild dose- the fever ranged between 38 and 39 degrees, but it didn't slow him down too much, and the rash (like tiny blisters) wasn't very extensive and didn't seem to be very itchy. In the worst case I have heard kids can have blisters in their mouths which stop them wanting to eat or drink anything, but Riku only had a couple of dots inside his lip that I could see, and was eating more or less normally.
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| Looking under the weather here, but actually he only lay down for about 10 minutes and soon had the forehead-cooling sheet off! |
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| Spots on his hands and feet soon after they started appearing. It got worse than this and spread all up his legs and to his nappy area as well, but didn't really seem to bother him. |
Unfortunately we had to keep Riku home from both a craft playgroup that I was supposed to be running (a friend took over), and a friend's birthday party, but never mind! At least we didn't pass it on to anyone that I know of, and also none of the adults in the house caught it either, so I'm guessing we have all had it before and have some immunity.
One side effect of the illness that we are starting to see is peeling skin on his feet and hands. I'm hoping this won't progress to another fairly common effect which is losing the toenails and sometimes fingernails- if it does happen it probably won't be for another month or more yet, according to what I've read.
Anyway, hopefully that will be the last we see of that illness! I had been worried about it since I had heard of kids really suffering with the blisters in their mouths, but it turned out to be not so bad.
