As of Saturday night my plans for Sunday and Monday were to get Francesca’s room, the kitchen and all the odds & sods around our current house and then clean the new place from top to bottom. One emergency trip to the vet, two mad dashes to A&E and lots of prescription medicine later we had still managed to get what we needed done – just with lots of interruptions.

On Sunday morning we took a poorly Bob cat over to the vet thanks to an infected wound in his leg, on the way home I noticed some spots on the palm of Fran’s hand but didn’t think anything of it. When Fran woke up from her nap a couple of hours later she was boiling hot and dopey. I rang Dean who was at the new house and by the time he came back she only had enough energy to lay on me. I took her temp and it was ranging from 38.5 to 41 degrees.

We took her upstairs to change her nappy and take her clothes off to cool her down. As soon as we took her bodysuit off we noticed a red and purple spotty rash across her chest and back, plus more bubbly spots around her nappy area – similar to the ones on her hand. Obviously I immediately thought the worse, but neither me or Dean mentioned the ‘M’ word. We got her dressed and made our way to the hospital. In the car she was struggling to stay awake and staring into space.

By the time we’d been seen by the triage nurse, I was in a bit of panic but thankfully after taking her temperture and having a proper look at her the rash she told us she thought it was a viral infection. The next nurse agreed but said the ‘blisters’ on the hand could be Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. We got sent home with instructions to keep her cool and dosed up on Calpol.

Sunday night was terrible – Frankie was sweating, tearful and by the time Dean got up for work on Monday morning the rash was more angry and more blisters had appeared over her hands and mouth. We took her straight back to hospital and after getting a FOURTH opinion by a doctor it was decided she had HFMD. Oddly enough I’ve never been so relieved! It was by far the scariest 24 hours we’ve had with her and I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.

We now have a surprisingly perky Francesca on our hands – her legs, arms, hands, feet, mouth and face are covered in spots and blisters but they don’t seem to be giving her much trouble. She hasn’t had a temperature since yesterday morning and she’s happily cuddled up with some juice and The Little Mermaid this afternoon.

After all that I’m hoping the move goes smoothly… it’s not like we’ve got a cat with a cone on his head whose not allowed outside, medicine that we CAN’T misplace, a baby we have to keep perfectly clean to stop infection spreading and 2 days of packing lost to all of the above. Bollocks.