For as long as I can remember, I have been plagued by periodic cold sores (aka: fever blisters) If you look back on photos of me as a child you will see them in nearly every school photo (you know the ones with the cheesy backgrounds and the photographer that smells like moth balls?)...they have always been a part of my life. I break out with cold sores at least a couple times a year. Usually in the fall with the change of the weather and anytime I have an increased amount of stress and/or fatigue, I will get a sore. They are consistent enough that I even have a prescription to halt them in their tracks once they start (that is IF i have had the prescription filled and the pills at home to take...)
Usually I'm the only one really affected by it (except the fact that I can't kiss my cute husband...so therefore he's affected too), but this time, it has gone beyond me to affect my precious little girl. She's two weeks old now and within hours of her delivery, I broke out with a cold sore. As the first one went away, I got another...then a THIRD! arrrrgggghhhh!!! I've been super careful not to kiss her during this time (which was really difficult, let me tell you) so that I wouldn't spread the virus to her. BUT nevertheless, last Sunday I saw what I thought looked like the beginnings of a cold sore on her cute little lip! I felt horrible, of course, and then I went onto the internet to see if it was something i needed to worry about.
Well, I found lots of horror stories about babies gettting the Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV...which is the technical term for cold sores...and yes, it is a form of herpes and it is contagious.) It kinda freaked me out, but at least by reading one of those stories, I knew to take it seriously. I called the pediatrician's office and since it was a weekend, I talked to the nurse on call. She said I needed to take little Aliyah to the ER to have it checked out because HSV in infants can be very serious. So off to the ER we went.
Doc checked her out, didn't see any other lesions, there was no fever and she seemed alert and all, so he said he thought she was ok but to watch to see if the sore blistered or if other spots showed up. Yesterday, I noticed that although the first sore went away, there was another spot on the inside of her lip. We had a pediatric appointment scheduled already so I talked to Dr. Peterson about it and he proceeded to call someone from Infectious Diseases. They said that it should be taken very seriously and that she needed to be admitted at Children's Hospital in Seattle. So we took her up there last night and watched her go through all kinds of tests, pokes and prods (including a spinal tap the poor thing...she was such a trooper too). Now we await the results of all the cultures to determine if she really has been infected with HSV or not. If not, we go home, if yes, then we could be here for another week...or more i guess.
Wow, right? Well, here I sit in Aliyah's room thinking once again how much I HATE cold sores! They have plagued me since my earliest days and now they extend their reach to my sweet little baby girl. Personally, I would like to banish them to the depths!
My heart hurts for my little munchkin. She is so cute and so sweet and seeing her with an IV in her hand and all the monitors attached at her little arms and legs just kills me. Never imagined that we'd be holed up at the hospital so early in her life...AND on Thanksgiving Day no less. But IF she does have the virus, this is the place to be. They know what they are doing here and they are taking good care of her and of us. Thank you Jesus for good, smart doctors who really care about their patients.
