Why I have had a hard time blogging lately...

This poor little guy has had all of my attention...

Zac is not well... It all began Saturday as we were together with family and friends and noticed Zac was not his normal happy self. By night time he was running an extremely high fever and by Sunday morning (after being up a lot of the night) he had two pimples near his mouth. By the time I returned from church, he had 7 or 8 "pimples". By night he couldn't sleep and they looked more like blisters. We figured they were fever blisters, maybe cold sores but not likely. By Monday he had over 20 on his face and I noticed they were in his lips and on his tongue.

A trip to the doctor and he was diagnosed with the herpes virus. Essentially any child can get this from a simple cold. Andy had cold sores a lot as a child so we blame him for Zac's predisposition to them. I was told to continue Tylenol and ibuprofen to control the pain and try to keep him hydrated.

Two days later and I feel as though we have been and are still going through a nightmare. Zac's face has close to 40 blisters and the inside of his mouth has at least that many. In talking to the doctor again we were thinking chicken pox but now we are back to the herpes. Zac has not slept for more than an hour at a time in the last three days. He has not eaten anything and he has gotten to a point where he cannot drink either. Just trying to get the medicine in him has been a nightmare as his mouth is killing him.

Almost getting a smile out of him

I sat tonight, holding him as he cried hysterically. I began to cry - probably from lack of sleep and lack of knowing how to help him. It is a helpless feeling when your child is in so much pain and there is nothing you can do to take it away. We have tried every home remedy there is to give him a little comfort and nothing is working. I can honestly say I have never experienced anything so hard with any of my kids in my life... Sure Hayden cried for the first 10 months of his life and had horrible reflux, sure we thought Brynley had spina bifida, and yeah Zac puked every day of his life and had abdominal surgery... but nothing compares to this. The only thing I could do was walk and cry right along with him. The screaming of course aggravates his sores in his mouth and he can't suck on his pacifier because it hurts so badly.

This too shall pass... eventually, when, I don't know. Soon I hope, not sure how much more I (or Zac more importantly) can take!

On a side note, Andy has been fighting to pass 4 kidney stones for the last three days. Really? Did it have to happen right now? I can't give him any of the attention he deserves because it is all focused on Zac. Andy is a trouper though, he's been helping with Zac when it's been too hard for me even with the immense pain he is in.

So hopefully I can get back to blogging soon, for now I am off to bed! On second though, I just heard Zac wake up screaming... back to the grindstone.