Daycare, aka Viral Culture Media

Our kids started daycare in February at the age of six months, and since then they’ve been sick about three or four times each. I can’t be exact because they seemed to have a continuous runny nose from February until April. And despite trying to keep all of their bottles, cups, and toys separate and alcohol-wiped, the twins always get sick with the same thing usually one or two days after the other one.

Last week, I got a call from daycare in the middle of my work day. Eleanor had thrown up and had a temperature of 101° F. I was stuck in the middle of seeing a patient, so by the time I got to the daycare, she was in her crib, taking a nap. I came back about an hour later to pick her up, but I still had work to do, so Annie, the secretary in our EEG lab, played with her at her desk while I ran around finishing my work. Thank goodness for understanding co-workers who help me do the working mom juggle!

After I took her home, she was fussy, but took her bottle and went to sleep. Later that night, around midnight, she woke up screaming. When we picked her up, she was nearly inconsolable, appeared to be in pain, threw up onto my shirt, then quieted. We put her back into her crib when she started to yawn. I was tired, so I didn’t have the energy to play doctor, and try to figure out what was wrong with her. It was only her second time vomiting, including the episode at school, and she hadn’t had diarrhea, so I didn’t think it was gastroenteritis. She wasn’t coughing, having a runny nose, or pulling at her ear so it didn’t seem to be a typical cold or ear infection. I remember falling asleep thinking, “What the heck is wrong with her?” and running through a list in my head: roseola (expect more fevers, then a rash), urinary tract infection, meningitis–it got scarier and scarier until I finally fell asleep in exhaustion.

The next day, we gave her some cheerios, and she really started crying. I generally try to avoid being pediatrician to my kids, but this time I whipped out my penlight and looked into her mouth. It was filled with ulcers. Shallow ulcers with a red rim on her tongue, gums, back of her throat. Herpangina caused by a Coxsackie virus. Damn. I felt really bad because we hadn’t given her any pain medicine! One dose of Motrin and she was back to being happy Eleanor.

Later that day, Miranda started crying with her baby food. I looked in her mouth and she had the same thing, although not as severe as Eleanor. Sigh.

Here’s a picture of sick Eleanor.

One subtle thing which only Bernard and I noticed is that she’s holding her mouth tightly closed and it’s gradually filling up with saliva causing her cheeks to puff out a little. (She stopped swallowing her saliva because of the pain.) Every five to ten minutes she would let out all that saliva onto her bib (or shirt), then clam her mouth shut again until the next round.