All hail the HMO

bowl
Originally uploaded by mommyleek

Does anyone remember this face? Yeah, the one covered in sore and cracking blisters? I do realize that the cuteness of the kid somewhat diminishes the eewww factor, but humor me.

This was J a year and a half ago, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as me making the decision to withdraw him from daycare. The doctor diagnosed him as having hand, foot and mouth disease, and I knew exactly where it came from since his entire class ended up with it after one particular child arrived with a suspicious spot on his lip, which the daycare owner did not question the parents about.

HFM, to make it easier to type, is one of those things that are like Chicken Pox. You're only supposed to really get it once in your life, and so once it was finally healed, which took twice as long as the doctors and the internet said it would, but that's just my kid's luck, we didn't worry much about it. All kids have thier illnesses, and we were glad to have that one behind us.

Fast forward about a year and a half...

About two weeks ago J got this nasty looking fever blister on his bottom lip. We immediately attacked it with campho and kept him slathered in chapstick to help put a barrier between his lip and his saliva so that it would dry out. Sure enough, it did, but not until it was done leaving a big nasty scar.

Wait! It gets better, I swear.

This Thursday he wakes up with his lip looking a little redder than usual, and his drooling, which he's made some progress with, was terrible all day. As the day progressed his entire bottom lip deteriorated into clusters of nasty little blisters... see above referenced picture if you really want to know what it looks like.

So Friday morning I took him to the pediatrician, already knowing what they're going to tell me-- J never had HFM, what the kid at daycare gave him was HSV-1, better known as Herpes. Cute huh? To tell people your kid has herpes all over his face. Yeah, I know. It's more of a stigma to the word than it is a disgusting disease. I mean, probably 50% or more of us carry the virus, and how many of us haven't had a fever blister in our lifetime? But still- swallow that one... my kid has herpes. Go ahead, try to apply that to your own sweet little kid's face. It's ugly, isn't it?

So, a copay at the doctor's office, and another (Good Lord! Have Mercy!)$50 copay for a 5gm tube of cream with copious refills later, we're left with a diagnosis that makes me sick and a kid who is going to suffer recurrent breakouts of this for the rest of his life.

But here's something interesting- in my research about HSV-1, I found this little snippet: "The virus remains in the nerve tissue of the face." Which leads me to wonder if maybe the virus, or his severe case from a year and a half ago could have something to do with his drooling/oro-motor deficits/hypersensitivity. Maybe I'm grasping at straws simply because no one else can seem to give me a definitive reason for any of it. There's no label, there's no real cure...it seems like we're just trying stuff because we don't know what else to do. And it's frustrating.

Frustrating because I have to watch my child struggle with it, and also because I have to shell out the money for the therapy that my insurance doesn't deem necessary. Dn't get me wrong- I'm not trying to put a dollar figure on my child's health. But it certainly would be nice to see some progress for my money-- or at least some answers.

And that's my Sunday rant.

I'll post something more uplifting once I've had more coffee. I promise.