That HFM scar on my kid’s leg still hasn’t gone away
This morning I was cramming his foot into the blue dinosaur rain boot he refuses to take off even when it’s 70 degrees out, yanking the sock up past his ankle, and there it was, plain as day. The tiny indented pale pink mark just below his shin, left over from that big Hand, Foot, and Mouth outbreak we went through back in October. I’d forgotten to look for it for almost a whole week, which is a thing that happens, but as soon as I saw it I paused, just for a second, before zipping up the boot and herding him out the door to preschool.
When he got HFM, all anyone told me was that it’s annoying but harmless. Blisters go away in a week, any little marks fade within a month, max. Our pediatrician was so unbothered when I pointed out the blister on his leg at the follow up, said it’d be gone by Christmas, no problem. It’s May now. Almost six months later, and it looks exactly the same as it did in January.
I got asked about it last week at the neighborhood playground. This mom I sort of know from preschool was leaning against the fence next to me, watching the kids climb the jungle gym, and she nodded at his leg where it was sticking out of his shorts, and said “Wait, did he burn that on a grill or something? I had a cousin whose kid got a bad grill burn, she used this ointment that made it fade almost all the way, I can send you the link if you want.” I felt my face get all warm, fumbled a little, said “Oh no, it’s just from Hand Foot and Mouth. He had a bad blister there.” She blinked, like she’d never heard of HFM leaving anything behind, just nodded and said “Huh, weird” and turned to talk about something else. I stood there for a minute feeling stupid, like I should have a better answer, like I should have fixed it by now.
I tried, for what it’s worth. The first two months after the blister scabbed over, I slathered that fancy organic vitamin E oil on it every single night after his bath. I bought it from that fancy baby boutique downtown, paid $22 for a little bottle that’s almost half full now because I stopped bothering three months ago. I forgot to reapply one night, then two, then a whole week, and when I remembered I looked at it and it looked exactly the same as it did when I was putting the oil on every night. So what was the point, right? I just stuck the bottle under the sink with all the other half-used baby products that didn’t do what they promised: the cradle cap brush that made him scream, the teething gel that didn’t numb anything, the lotion that was supposed to prevent eczema.
I keep thinking back to how bad that week was, honestly. He had blisters all over the inside of his mouth, couldn’t even swallow spit without crying, refused to eat anything except cherry popsicles that left his whole chin bright red for three days. We slept on the couch because if he laid flat in his bed he’d cough and his throat would hurt too bad. I checked his temperature every 45 minutes, spritzed his throat with that numbing spray every hour, googled “can toddlers die from HFM” at 2am like every other anxious mom. When the fever finally broke, when the last blister scabbed over, I washed all his sheets, threw away all the sticky popsicle sticks, wiped down every toy in the house with disinfectant, and I thought we were done. I thought that whole chapter was closed.
My mom saw it two weekends ago, when he was running around the backyard without pants on (toddler thing, don’t ask) and she pointed at it and said “Are you sure that’s just a scar? Shouldn’t you get the doctor to look at it again? What if it’s something else?” I got defensive, way faster than I needed to, said “It’s fine, the doctor saw it, it’s just from HFM” and changed the subject. Later that night, after everyone was asleep, I was folding laundry and I pulled up google on my phone and typed “can HFM scars become cancerous” like an idiot. I knew it was fine, I knew it was just a little mark, but still. The what if creeps in, doesn’t it?
No one talks about this part, you know? All the mom groups and the parenting pages talk about surviving HFM, how to get your kid to drink, when to go back to school, what to feed them when their mouth hurts. No one mentions that sometimes the scars stick around. Not big, scary scars, just little ones. A friend of mine told me her son had a really bad case of RSV two years ago, and he still gets winded way faster than the other kids his age when they run around at soccer practice. No one posts that. Everyone posts the “we made it through!” photos, all cheery, no leftovers. But the leftovers are always there, aren’t they? Little reminders that your kid was sick, that you were scared, that it didn’t just vanish without a trace.
My son doesn’t even know it’s there, honestly. I asked him the other day, when we were putting sunscreen on before a walk, I said “Does that spot on your leg ever hurt?” He looked down for half a second, shrugged, said “Nope. Can we get ice cream after the walk?” He doesn’t care. It doesn’t itch, it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t bother him at all. It only bothers me a little, most of the time. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about it when we sign up for swimming lessons, or when we take photos for the grandparents, like do I need to edit it out? Do other people notice it and think I’m not taking good care of him? It’s stupid, I know. It’s just a tiny little mark. It doesn’t mean anything bad. It’s not going to go away any time soon, maybe it never will. I think I’m just still used to everything with kids fixing itself, fading, going away, like all the parenting books said it would. Guess sometimes things just stick around. That’s all. (Word count: 1187)
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