The Dreadful Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease

There is an outbreak of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease (HFMD) recently at my twins childcare centre. 5 cases were reported in the last two weeks. And it seems that country wide Singapore had reported about over 700 cases of HFMD last month, mainly infected by pre-schoolers and young kids under the age of five. It is definitely a viral season.

Am I afraid? Certainly. Though my twins had unluckily contacted HFMD last September, they are not immune to the next infection.

What's so terrible about it?

The young children will usually have the following symptoms :

• mouth ulcers,
• Rashes (flat or raised red spots, some with blisters) on their palms, soles or buttocks;
• maybe some fever for 2-3 days, sore throat and runny noses.
• Vomiting and diarrhoea
• Poor appetite (mainly due to mouth ulcers)
• Tiredness and weakness

There is no treatment for HFMD, except medications to relieve symptoms which takes about 10 days to retreat. And in severe cases, if the young children are infected with a enterovirus-71(EV71) strains, it can cause neurological diseases like encephalitis and meningitis.

I remembered about 7 deaths of young pre-schoolers reported in Singapore over the peak virus outbreak of the HFMD EV71 in year 2000 and 2001. The island wide childcare centres had to be shut down for two weeks to stop the strain of virus from spreading. And parents at that time were more than happy to keep their children at home.

Last September, I was cursing and swearing at the odd chances of my twins getting HFMD though it was the milder coxsackie virus (CA16). Apparently, HFMD never sparred anyone, even adults could get it.

At that time, my twin girl, Gwyneth got HFMD first, but I did not notice any symptoms except her poor appetite; which I mistakenly thought it was due to her picky eating habit. Then her childcare teacher called to inform me that Gwyneth had a fever and she discovered some light red spots on her hands on the second day. That was when I started to find several mouth ulcers deep in her throat which were not easily visible unless you shine a torchlight in it.

I actually refused to believe Gwyneth got HFMD until the paediatrician confirmed the diagnosis. By then, on the third day, my twin boy, Asher was also infected with HFMD due to his supposedly contact with contaminated articles by Gwyneth; not surprisingly for twins with such close relationship.

My twins were not allowed to attend pre-school for at least 10 days until all symptoms are cleared. The most difficult part was the kids' diet, they basically did not feel like eating anything due to the pain coming from the ulcers. And I certainly do not wish to go through the same cycle again. God Bless.

Can happiness be inherited?

Yesterday, I read a very interesting news article on the topic of happiness.

It is discussing about a latest study of nearly 1,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins in which they found that genes control half the personality traits that make people happy while factors such as relationships, health and careers are responsible for the rest of our well-being.

So it seems like if we inherited the "happy" genes, we may tend to be a happier person. But what if we inherited the "sad" genes? Perhaps then we should "breed happiness thoughts" to these people since young? So that they could have a stronger inner emotional support later in life?

I was intrigued by these thoughts as I observed some difference in the emotional state of my fraternal twins. By the way, what this new study also showed was that the identical twins in a family were very similar in personality and in well-being, and by contrast, the fraternal twins were only around half as similar. I found that strangely true in my fraternal twins.

My twin girl, Gwyneth, tends to be happier and is always in a cheery mood. On the other hand, my twin boy, Asher, tends to be more worried and needs more assurance.

And it looks like this study has given parents a new task of "moulding" the other half of the children's happiness regardless if they inherited the "happy" or "sad" genes. Perhaps more so in the child who inherited the "sad" genes?

Read article:
"Happiness can be inherited, research finds".

Oh, when the twins are sick!

What a rat year this is! On the first day of Chinese New Year, Asher was down with fever and vomiting, and we knew that our house visiting is going to end on that day.

He was running stubbornly high fever, despite continuous 3 hourly alternate doses of paracetamol and Ibuprofen (an NSAID). So on the third day of Chinese New Year, when one of the clinics are opened, we quickly brought him to see a paediatrician. At certain time, Asher was running about 39 - 40 deg C fever, it was terrible for us and him. The paediatrician said he caught Influenza ("the potent flu") where some of the symptoms are fever, vomiting, diahorrea, muscles ache, lethagy, running nose and cough. Asher got all of these symptoms with mild vomiting and diahorrea.

The Dr said that the fever is going to run for around 5-6 days before everything settled. I was thinking there goes my sleep again. I am usually more "afraid" of Asher falling sick because he has allergic rhinitis and when he is sick, his blocked nose will "bug" him even more for the whole night. Basically, I lose sleep together with him as he will keep calling me every half hourly to help him.

This Influenza fever that Asher caught this time was rather "fierce", it just refused to come down for 5 days and was hovering around 38 deg C even after medication. We had even given him "Ling Yang water" to cool the fever and I think that sort of help him a little. On the 6th day, he started to feel better and was more "alive", but by then he had lost some weight.

When everything looked "rosier" for the next few days, Gwyneth started the next round of fever though milder than Asher. And Gwyneth had a shorter road of recovery as she probably only caught "secondary influenza" from her brother. By then, the mommy is the third victim who caught the flu bug!