I decided to give fate a few days to make sure the "rash" had completely left the building.
you know.. like when you post a big "We're going home"!
and 5 minutes later the doctor tells you the culture from 3 weeks ago came back postive!
I know some of you are laughin!
This is how it started...
This is when it started looking angry...
Last Saturday, a week ago, Carter came home from his soccer game and layed down for a nap. When I went to get him up, his back was covered with these little red spots. I tried not to panic, but of course, chicken pox was the first thing to pop into my mind. I got him up and he was running around acting normal and not even noticing the rash. It didn't seem to bother him and he wasn't itching. He wasn't running a fever and really didn't have any other symptoms. I waited about 30 minutes and decided I would give him some Benedryl and see if that made them go away. It didn't really make any difference. We had plans to meet Sean's brother for dinner, so we made the decision to go ahead and keep an eye on the rash. After dinner, we discussed going to the ER, but the rash had not spread and Carter hadn't noticed it all. Sean and I made the decision to go home and watch. We are only 15 minutes from Children's Legacy, so we didn't feel like Carter was in any danger. Carter slept great and the night was uneventful.
The next morning, we checked the rash again and agreed it was beginning to crawl over his shoulders and around his torso. We went to the ER first thing. By the time we got dressed and got a room in the ER, it began to morph and get angry. We really started to panic. To add to our concern, the young ER doc was completely convinced it was Chicken Pox. Great. Even though we still questioned whether it was truly chicken pox, she insisted it was.
Chicken Pox for Carter would be very bad. VERY BAD. Most of us don't think of Chicken Pox as a serious disease and most of us even had chicken pox. It was a right of passage in childhood. Now days, children get a vaccine and the majority of children don't get chicken pox. The vaccine for Chicken pox is a "live" vaccine and Carter cannot receive it. This puts him at risk. Thankfully, most children are required to get the vaccine and we hope their vaccination will protect Carter.
Not a fool proof method, but the best option we currently have.
It was obvious by the precautions they were taking at the hospital that this was more serious.
Yep- that's our room with the big tape across the door. scary.
It was such a concern that the head of Infectious Disease was in our room within an hour of our arrival. ID is one of those department you pray you'll see within a week and certainly not the head of the department! I could tell by his face he was worried. But the second we were able to grab Carter and sit him down- all the concern drained out of Dr.C's face. He sort-of laughed and said "well, I can tell you what it's not- NOT chicken pox". His demeanor then turned to more of a "I don't even know why you people are here". It was obvious by Carter's activity, it wasn't bothering him. He said we'll probably never know what it was and could get worse before it gets better. He said it would be gone in couple of days and discharged us. He was gone as fast as he arrived. Sean and I just kind-of looked at each other. Weird. But we gathered our things and waited for walking papers. Carter was still without clothes, so he decided to make the most of his climbing ability ~
I love how it was all fun until Sean realized I was taking a picture, then he had to be a good dad and tell Carter to get down. Yeah- look at the look on his face... excellent parenting Sean, you tell him!
and... yes- those are Elmo house slippers.
He got them for Christmas last year, and found them in his closet the other day.
So we went home.
Two days later... the mystery rash was gone.
Not that Carter even ever noticed it ~
I promise that Mickey was not injured in the making of this video!
and obviously, Carter loves it!
