Please Don't Burn Us On A Heap Of Sheep In Wales

You know what's lame? Zoë and I have hand, foot and mouth disease. It's just like hoof and mouth, except we don't have hooves. Maybe we are magical sparkling ponies inside and so we have magical hooves! Magical hooves with sores! It's not really so awful to have, although it's very very contagious. Poor Zoë's throat is hideously sore and I wish I hadn't followed the doctor's lead in looking in there with a light, because I didn't need to see her soft palate perforated with repulsive holes. Mostly it's just like getting a cold and a mild stomach virus at the same time, with a soupçon of sores. It'll burn itself out after a week. We did get reported to the government, but as far as I know they don't plan to cull us from the herd. I rate Violet's chances of not getting it as 5%. The doctor told me, oh, adults almost never get it because they were exposed at some point, but naturally I have it because I am a fracking mutant. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the girls and I get sick a lot, dawg. I was telling Zoë about all the great things in our life that mean we are actually very lucky despite often getting transitory illnesses, but she wasn't in the mood to hear it. Since HFM can't be transmitted via blogs, feel free to weigh in with cheering messages for Zoë. I will read them to her. Also, if you're at that conference in Chicago, you can tell me whether my husband has gotten into a fistfight with Adam Kotsko yet.

Comments

[Rich Puchalsky]

It looks like you got it after the major outbreak. But Coxsackie A is all over. It was going through my neighbors' kids in Massachusetts all last year.

So, maybe the cheering message could be that lots of the surrounding kids have gotten it and they're fine? That doesn't sound especially cheering, I guess.

[dsquared]

fun fact: nearly all outbreaks of foot and mouth disease are traceable to the small number of laboratories in which they manufacture the vaccine for foot and mouth disease.

[dsquared]

Oh, sorry, where are my manners? Best wishes and get well soon!

[jholbo]

Sorry, honey, good luck with the kids (and good luck yourself.) I'm glad to say that sore throat I had, getting off the plane, has cleared up.

[Matt]

John- if we'd known about this before letting you back in the country I would have insisted that the TSA people put you through the sheep-dip before letting you beyond customs!

Would it chear Zoe up to tell her one occassional side effect is hands turing in to hooves? That probably would not have cheered me up as a kid, but it would have cheered me up if I were the one saying it. Really, though, I hope everyone feels better.

[Jackmormon]

Oh, Jesus. Get well soon, Belle and the bairn!

[The Modesto Kid]

Get well soon, Zoë! Get well soon, Belle!

[MeinGutHerrDoktorKaint]

Kotsko vs. Holbo???

Andrew Aguecheek vs. Uncle Toby?

Robertson vs. Falwell???

Shirley vs. Laverne????

Robin vs. Batman????

(Bestest wishes..................)

[ben wolfson]

I would put the odds on Holbo.

[an anonymous kate]

Hand, foot and mouth disease went through my son's daycare a few years back. All the staff were familliar with it, so it's not really as freaky as it sounds. Get well soon!

[SEK]

I can speak for John and Adam, but only somewhat, as a cone-of-silence dropped upon our table as we dined: there were no fist-fights. There was a discussion of whose passive-aggression is more passive-aggressive, but the conclusion was "Skeletor," which should tell you a lot about the general tenor of the conversation.

[belle waring]

SEK, if you're claiming that someone other than my husband came in first in the passive-agressive stakes, I'm going to have to call bullshit. no one can match his passive-agressive fu!!

[bitchphd]

I totally believe the cone of silence. I bet there was, like, a massive vacuum of passive-aggressiveness at that table.

....

That said, get well soon Zoë and Belle! And stop getting sick, mkay?

[SEK]

I couldn't follow the mock-mock-condescension blow-for-blow, so when everyone started blaming Skeletor, I figure he must've won. (But really, it was a wonderful dinner, excellent Ethiopian food, and humorous conversation had by all. My only regret is that Tom, my friend who treated us, wasn't aware that he was in the midst of Blogging History until after we'd dropped Kotsko off.)

[belle waring]

I was amused to hear that kotsko had wrongly imagined john to be fat because of a stipulative resemblance to jonah goldberg. John's not fat, everybody! nor does he look like jonah goldberg.

I'm glad to hear a good time was had; I figured everyone would get along Ok in real life. except maybe not anthony.

[Matt Weiner]

Get well soon, Zöe and Belle! I'm sorry to hear that you have Coxsackie disease.

[Jonathan]

When I met John last year, I was surprised by how fast he walks. (Scott also told me that I reminded him of an SEC football coach, which I took as a compliment, however it may have been intended.)

[jholbo]

I walk fast, I think, because I have extremely long legs relative to my height - 6 feet. I have a friend who is 6 foot 5 inches, with relatively short legs. One day we noticed that our belts were at approximately the same level. Curious.

[SEK]

John, how could my saying that not be a compliment? Geaux Tigers!

[SEK]

Crap, confusing my Johns and Jonathans. I meant Johnathan. I should be napping. (John will wonder why I'm not.)

[The Constructivist]

Hey Zoe, onechan got this when she was first learning to crawl in a park, of all places, as nearly as we can determine, and she's now almost 4. Whatever doesn't turn you into a magical flying unicorn makes you stronger.

[Adam Kotsko]

I'm a fast walker as well. Whenever someone passes me on the sidewalk, I silently salute them, because it means they're really serious about walking.

[Jacob T. Levy]

Ack. Get well, Zoe and Belle both!

We must now add a "no hoof-and-mouth disease" proviso to all wishes for ponies.

An aside: I think I was in my 20s before I realized that it was "hoof-and-mouth disease," and not, on analogy with "I put my foot in my mouth," "hoof-in-mouth disease."

[Paula Helm Murray]

In my middle years of babysitting (16-20), I had a family that I babysat for when they went on vacation because I'd keep the kids in their own environment, I was granted permission to drive their car and had physician permissions (the pediatrician in question was my uncle Russell, so he'd have seen them without the note, but I'm certain admitting them to a hospital would have been problematic).

One year parents had been gone about five days into their vacation when both Miriam and Matthew came out in the vesicles. it so did not help that their water in their house was softened with a salt system and the water burned their poor little mouths...

I called uncle Russell's office because hauling two miserable kids (1-y-o and 3-y-o) was not kind to them and told the nurse the symptoms. She let me know it was sort of epidemic at that point and to try to keep them hydrated and get broth or something nutritious into them. the worst was the trip to the grocery because they were both so pitiful but what could i do? I couldn't leave them alone at home....

She also let me know what to look for if they needed more than just home care. We weathered it, they were better well before their folks got home from vacation.

[cw]

Do you think you guys get sick a lot because you live in Singapore?

[Nakku]

Sorry to hear that and I hope you're all better soon. If you're planning your next ailment, bluetongue disease is probably worth a go.
We thought of you the other day as we had an unreasonably long transit in Changi (on our way home! for good!) But we contented ourselves with walking aimlessly from one end of the terminal to the other and back again.

[belle waring]

ew, Paula, that's a bummer, sick children in the grocery store. glad you came through ok.

cw: sort of, but mostly just because we have congenitally feeble immune systems. my mom and sister are the same way.

Nakku: oh, I would have come met you for a lime juice or something--but I was sick :( were any more of your possessions salvageable or did you just abandon everything to equatorial rot?

[Timothy Burke]

Dang! Feel better, guys. You are owed a long period of no-sick coming soon.