A couple weeks ago, poor Finley came down with a case of Hand, Foot, and Mouth. He had red, crusty sores all around his mouth, in his nose, inside his mouth, in his diaper area, and on his hands and feet. It was not pretty! Fortunately, he didn't have a fever so he didn't feel too bad. He did complain about the sores sometimes, saying, "Oh, hurts," and pointing to them, but he really wasn't very cranky. Unfortunately, HFM takes forever to go away! We were basically quarantined inside the apartment for over a week straight, and still had to be careful after that not to expose anyone to him. No playing with friends, no going to the playroom, no running errands unless I could keep him contained in the stroller. My only saving grace each day was taking Finley for a walk around the block in the stroller, even in the rain! We had to do something to get out of the house!
Even two weeks out now, Finley's sores are not 100% gone. It was actually really frustrating because of the cultural differences here. Anytime people saw Finley's face, they would look at him with a surprised/disgusted expression and be like, "Oh no! What is wrong with Finley?" I was patient at first, but after days of this, every single time we were out for a walk, I got a little short with people and just said, "He's sick," and walked off. People just didn't realize that, 1) that is really rude in my culture, and 2) Finley is old enough to understand those words and expressions.
The great news is that Nate and I did not get HFM (praise God!). The bad news is we got something else. When Finley was finally starting to get better, Nate and I got bad colds and fevers. I felt awful for a day or two, but then was fine. Nate's cold turned into a chest infection, and it took him the past week of being on antibiotics to kick it. But now I think we're all finally better!
Here's a photo from one of our first outings after Finley was starting to get better. We went to the wet market in Shau Kei Wan and stocked up on the tiny little oranges that Finley loves and a box of noodles. There were so many noodles in there that Finley and I ate them twice, and we shared a serving with our helper, all for $10 HKD/ $1.25 USD. And as you can see from the photo, Finley loved them!
