hand foot and mouth disease

So last week Annabelle was a little under the weather. She wasn't eating, she had a lot of drool, she seemed tired, but otherwise okay, so I didn't take her to see the doc. Oh, and my friend asked me "what's that rash on her face?" My response? "Hmm." Sometimes she has a little rash on her face, especially if I don't wipe it after eating. Turns out it was hand foot and mouth disease. And now I have it. The feet and hands are no big deal. It's the mouth that is killing me. Blisters the size of nickels--5 of them--under my tongue. The pain is unbearable. I am taking liquid lidocaine. I can't eat. I can't talk. I sound like Marlee Matlin. After careful consideration, I would choose childbirth over this. It would be over by now and I would have a baby to show for it. And after you have the baby they give you pancakes and if you live in Texas, people bring bar-b-que to the hospital. Instead I have a blister that if you look real carefully, you will see the profile of a Roman soldier--the kind with a helmet and a plume on it. Definitely not cute and cuddly. And forget about the bar-b-que.

Thankfully Hyphen is being cool about it. Helping out and not teasing me too much. He's only asked me if I am going to start washing my hands about 15 times. I do wash my hands. Just not compulsively like some people.

But on the bright side because I haven't felt like eating for a couple of days, I am now back down to the danger zone for my weight. I have the following scale: Acceptable (but still need to lose 15lbs.), Danger zone, fat zone, orca zone (a.k.a the splash zone) and then finally the Oprah zone. I was a card carrying member of the book club two weeks ago when I decided to stop drinking sweet drinks. I generally have one soda or several glasses of sweet tea a day. For me not having sweet drinks means only having them twice a week. I got down to the orca zone and now I am comfortably in the fat zone, but as soon as I can eat again I am going to get some chicken nuggets from Wendy's and put a lot of salt on them, so the danger zone might be a short lived phenomenon.