Hand, Foot & Mouth

We had a visit from Julie, of the Alaska Higbees, the other weekend!  She had to come down for a Mining Conference in Tucson, and drove up for a few days to spend with family.  We were lucky enough to have her visit for a day.  We didn't have a whole lot of time, so we walked around downtown Phoenix and saw the sights.  It was so much fun seeing her again!  We all saw each other during Thanksgiving, but it felt like it'd been a lot longer.  And who knows when we'll get to see her again!  

Everyone making fun of poor, sleeping Ellie

She fell asleep with her leg up

 Stacy, Brian, and Ada stayed for a few more days.  We swam, we shopped, we ate, you know... the usual stuff.  It was fun!

The Japanese Friendship Gardens

Feeding the Koi Fish

 We had a good time!  We went to this really nice park in Scottsdale and walked to an Asian Fusion restaurant.  And here starts Part 2 of our adventure!  (If you read my sister's blog, you can probably skip this part cause she did a nice job of explaining everything.)  Ellie passed out on my lap during dinner, and afterwards I noticed she was running a fever.  The next morning she was really sick all day, wouldn't eat, and complained that her mouth hurt, which I took to mean she had a sore throat.  We went to the doctor and they diagnosed her with Strep based on her symptoms (not on a strep test) and put her on antibiotics.  I called Stacy to let her know, since Ada and Ellie had been sharing food all weekend.  Sure enough, Ada came down with a fever a few days later.

Meanwhile, Mike is in the midst of finals.  So he pretty much stayed at the school all day and night (which he probably would have done anyways) fearing for his health.  Since I was the sole caretaker of poor sick little Ellie, I caught the bug as well.  It was pretty awful.  I had horrible body aches like the flu, a nasty sore throat like Strep, and if that wasn't bad enough, my mouth errupted in canker sores. 

Stacy called me a few days later.  They had to take Ada back in to the doctor's office because she'd developed a rash.  Long story short, her doctor said that she thought we'd all contracted Hand Foot and Mouth disease instead of Strep.  I'd never heard of it.  But it's a common childhood virus that most kids get before they turn 5, and if you weren't lucky enough to get it when you were little, you can get it as an adult.  The symptoms can look like strep except people usually get blisters on their hands and feet, and some people develop mouth sores.  We all ended up getting it, except Mike, but we all had different symptoms.  It was not fun!  Even after my sore throat cleared up, I had canker sores all over my mouth, which made eating impossible. 

Anyways, we're on the tail end of it now, but man... I'm glad that's all over.  Thanks for coming down Hansens!  Sorry you got more than you bargained for!

Ellie trying out Ada's patches.