I am a week behind with a blog. Last week I was planing a blog about my favourite haunting movies, but illness got in the way. My son, who is two and a half, recently started nursery and he caught hand, foot and mouth disease. It made him a little grumpy for a few days, but nothing major, he barely got a rash. Then last Sunday night I came down with terrible, flu like symptoms. So bad that I left a gig early to come home and crawl into bed. The following day I woke up feeling much better, except for a very sore throat. Tuesday though, the nightmare started. I awoke to find my mouth full of painful ulcers, and blisters. By lunch time I had blisters all over my hands and feet as well.
The next three days are some of the worst I have experienced through illness. I found it very difficult to swallow, due to the blisters in my throat, every mouthful of food felt as though it were laced with razor blades. I couldn't touch anything without feeling agonising pain in my hand, and walking was like I was constantly stepping on a bed of nails. Add to this a constant throb in my hand and feet that was akin to the feeling of severe sunburn.
I had never even heard of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease before contracting it myself. My initial fear was that it was in some way connected to Foot and Mouth, the disease suffered by cattle. This led me to imagine the government turning up to burn me to stop it spreading as I live in the countryside. Of course HFM has nothing to do wit foot and mouth and is in fact an incredibly common childhood illness.
However, like most incredibly common childhood illnesses the effect on adults is much worse than on the children. It seems such a strange illness though, there is no logical connection between the symptoms, how does a flu like virus give you blisters on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet? It felt like my body was betraying me. It was like the worst kind of Cronenberg nightmare. This tiny, viral invader had got into my body and was mutating it to it's own end. It shows that no matter how strong we are, it is the smallest monsters that can cause us the greatest harm.
I am feeling much better now, the sore throat and mouth ulcers have cleared up completely. The blister rashes on my hands and feet have faded to almost nothing, giving me only a tiny amount of pain now. I will leave you with one more nightmarish fact about HFM that I am dreading. About four weeks after recovery, it is quite common for both the fingernails and toenails to just drop off, creepy shit right there!
