An outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease at a daycare has a Winnipeg mother publicly warning other families after a serious infection sent her to the emergency room.
“I would like (Manitobans) to know that this can be very serious for other people, even if your experience is not very severe. Even if you think your child is fine after only three or four days, it’s really important to stay home because your child is still contagious. Someone else might have a really negative result,” says Erica Bulow.
After picking up her four-year-old daughter from home daycare in Island Lakes on June 30, Bulow was informed that another child had attended daycare for three days while contagious with hand, foot and mouth disease. Symptoms of the viral illness may take three days to a week to appear. These include a fever, rash and blisters — which Buelow saw firsthand when her daughter started getting itchy red spots on July 2.
Despite careful disinfection and distancing in their household, Bulow and her 10-month-old son also became infected and began experiencing more severe symptoms. Her son had a high fever, and Buelow consulted a pediatrician to care for both of her children, not expecting to become seriously ill herself.
By July 4, her symptoms had progressed to include numbness in her face, fingers, hands and feet. She was breathing hard and the blisters on her feet were so painful that she couldn’t walk.
Her husband called an ambulance, and Bulow spent more than seven hours waiting to see the lone emergency room doctor at St. Boniface.” For more than five hours, she was on a stretcher in the corridor, connected to an oxygen tank, while at least nine other patients waited in the corridor and a “continuous stream” of paramedics lined up to unload patients from the ambulance.
“At that point the oxygen tank was gone, but I was able to feel my fingers and toes and my jaw again. The doctor said, ‘well, we don’t really know what it is, it’s probably just a side effect of the hands, feet and mouth, it could be meningitis,'” Buelow said.
The disease can cause swelling of the brain and meningitis, but Buelow said the doctor was apparently too busy and negligent as a result.
“There wasn’t much concern about it in the hospital. They just said, “Oh, hand, foot, mouth is a minor disease, it’s more of an inconvenience than anything else.”
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The next day, she and her young son visited a doctor at the clinic, who confirmed that they had severe infections of the disease.
Bullow was prescribed antibiotics because of concerns that the virus had paved the way for a bacterial infection. She and her family are now on the mend, but Bulow wanted to share her experience to help others.
She said she was told all the children at the daycare were infected, as were all their siblings. The epidemic has affected many families. Buelow is calling for clear public health communication about hand, foot, and mouth disease, including specific quarantine guidelines and more information about the potential for people to get sick if they have previously been infected with COVID-19.
Her family contracted COVID-19 in April, also as a result of an infection at her daughter’s daycare.
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority did not respond to a request for comment on the outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease in Winnipeg this summer.
katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com
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