This week we were at my mom's house in Indiana. We had a lot of fun there and the girls got to do a lot of swimming in her pool. Ben went in the little baby pool a bit and splashed around, but never really sat down in the pool. They all also had a ton of outside time in my mom's "park" (their word for her backyard because it has a swingset and slide). On Saturday, we noticed he had little white lines on his fingernails. It seemed a little odd. On Sunday, I noticed his fingernails were starting to flake off and come apart. He also had a rash. It was a very clear rash, almost like a heat rash on his arms and upper body. But today it is on his legs.
Today, I called the pediatrician to have him seen because his one fingernail was almost off. That was a weird call to make. "Yes, is your son sick?" "Well, not exactly sick, but his fingernails have these weird white lines on them and they're falling off. I think he should be seen." "No other symptoms though?" " Well no....but, this is Ben...." "Oh, ok, let me see what we have...can you be here at 3:20?" And off we went.
So, the nurse got us back right away and asked what was going on today. I told her, and told her "and of course I googled it, and the first thing that came up is all these nutritional deficiencies. So, I figured maybe a doctor should see him and make sure that's not actually it." She laughed and said of course he should be seen, especially since it looked painful for him (and it is, he keeps telling me "Don't touching my fingers."
The doctor came in and said "well, the good news is, this is most likely not a nutritional deficiency of any sort. What it most likely is, is a rare complication from the hand foot and mouth he had last month. Most kids, it does not happen, but very very rarely, when a child has hand, foot, and mouth, around a month after the disease has run it's course, they will get little white lines on their nails and they will lose their nails. The good news is, once they lose their nail, it will come back and it won't happen again. But, it can become easily infected. You'll notice this if it becomes very red and has a hard red lump on the nail bed." She told me that we should wash with antibacterial soap frequently and especially after he plays outside. And to let his teachers know to do the same. I guess I'll have to buy some antibacterial soap to send in since I don't think they use that in the school. The rash, she said was most likely an allergic reaction to something. It did NOT look viral at all. We are supposed to lather him with lotion and let him go shortsless when at home.
So, leave it to Ben to get the rare complications from a disease that we thought he was over. Obviously, this is why we try to make sure he doesn't get any diseases. Hopefully this summer will be a little easier on him, since there are much fewer kids in his class in the summer. There were only 4 kids there this week on the toddler list. A lot less likely to get sick with 4 kids there as opposed to 11. I'm sure there will be more there as the summer goes on, but even last year, he had a much easier time during the summer than he did when he started in the fall. So, hopefully he will stay healthy this summer. And hopefully it won't be too painful losing his fingernails. It does seem like he is going to lose every single one of them. He already has 2 of them that are just hanging there. And the rest of them are looking like they are heading in that direction. We will see, I suppose. For now, I am just trying to get him to keep band-aids on the ones that are falling off!
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| Helping pick berries in grandpa's garden |
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| Riding Big Jake at grandma and grandpa's |
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| Playing with his truck while wearing pearls |
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