Akabe!

Which is Japanese for 'red eyes' and is what kids yell at each others as they chase each other around pulling their eyelids down or up trying to look as scary and yucky as possible. A game which Amy is the queen of this week, as you can see.

Her problems began about ten days ago, with headaches. Within a few days she had a fever, and coughing, so we took her to the hospital, as I was not sure that it was not her asthma coming back. He said it was just a cold, not to worry. That night she had an itchy foot, which I put down to an mosquito bite. We put an itch-patch on it and left it at that, and I felt a bit mean in retrospect because when she woke a second time, I said it was just an itchy foot and go back to sleep!

But in the morning, she got half way down the stairs before crying out that her feet were red and sore. And they were bright red! It appeared on her hands too. So back we went to the hospital, were told it was a 'summer cold' and given antibiotics. Go figure. By Friday the rash was clearing, and I thought we were home free, but that night the coughing brought on vomiting, and the next morning the above is what happened to her eyes. We took her to the pediatrician this time, as I was beginning to feel that the young recent graduates at the hospital didn't have the diagnostic experience to tell what was happening to her. He sent me straight back to the hospital for blood tests, to rule out a 'bleeding disorder'. Scary! At least I had him pointing the nincompoops at public in the right direction. So we spent a worried few hours getting her tested and getting the results. No nasty blood disorders, but the tests showed she has coxsachie/entovirus, the virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease. The subconjuctival heamhorrage she has in both eyes is one of the possible symptoms of the virus. It looks awful, but is pretty much harmless and heals on its own. It takes a few weeks, though, so we went out yesterday and bought her some sunglasses so she doesn't look like too much of a freak in public!