Trip #1: Thursday (a few weeks ago)
Evan sported a variety of rashes and skin conditions the past few weeks prior to this office visit. First, we noticed a splotchy red rash at the top of his back (under his collar) one Saturday. It came again a few days later and again the following Saturday. The only common thing we can figure out so far (after trying different bath soap and sun lotion, etc) was that putting sunscreen on the back of his neck, combined with heat (sitting in car seat or stroller perhaps too) which probably made him sweat, may have led to this contact dermatitis-like rash (because we put sunscreen on other parts of his body that never rashed up, so it couldn't have been just the sunscreen). It went away fine each time with a light dose of cortisone cream, but still bothered us and probably bothered Evan.
That pesky splotchy rash...
Rash #2 was a heat-style prickly red dot rash down each of his sides one day (in between said Saturdays noted above). Was the shirt he wore that day too thick/warm? Was it too abrasive against his sensitive skin? Who knows.
"Rash" #3 was on his hands. And really wasn't so much of a rash, but just a peeling rawness to his hands. Of all the three rashes, this was the one that persisted long enough to be seen by the doctor about. While we showed photos of the other two rashes, the doc chalked them up to "could have been anything", while he diagnosed Evan with having dyshidrotic dermatitis on his hands (even though when I read about this condition it usually mentions blisters, which I never saw any blisters...). At first he suggested we use cortisone on them to alleviate any itchiness, but I don't think that helped them (and may have made them more raw) so then we started using aquaphor on them several times a day and they are finally now almost back to normal.
The scare for me there was that peeling hands is a symptom for Kawasaki's disease...an illness I had never heard of before, however the doctor felt pretty confident Evan did not have that, as that disease presents itself with a pretty high fever first and then the other symptoms typically follow that. We had to monitor Evan for fever over the next few days after that doctor visit, but no high fever occurred. He did get a mild low-grade fever on the weekend after his appointment, which I called the doctor about, but it wasn't even considered a fever it was so low. Still, I just didn't like all of the seemingly coincidental out-of-the-ordinary symptoms occurring nearly at once, so I had to call for some more peace of mind.
Trip #2: Monday
So after worrying about Evan's low grade fever and mild irritability over the weekend, this little boy happens to give us another worry starting Sunday night. On his way to the bathroom for his bedtime bath he somehow tripped on his own foot, falling on it, and hurting it in a way that he wouldn't put any weight on it.
He had somewhat recently had a similar incident at the park with John, where he was running, stepped in a hole, and fell, hurting his leg. It took him about half a day before he started putting weight on it and limping. At that time, since it healed fairly quickly we figured it was just a sprain. Plus we were home with him when he wasn't walking well, so we just tried to keep him off of the leg and let it heal.
However, this time, we put him to bed hoping the foot would be better in the morning, in time for John and I to go to work and Evan to daycare. No such luck. Instead, he still wasn't putting any weight on it, so we took him in first thing in the morning to the doctor and Evan got his first x-ray. Luckily, nothing appeared broken, and so it was again probably just a sprain. Nonetheless, we kept him home from daycare so we could help keep him off of his foot until he felt better for him to walk on, which he started doing later on Monday afternoon.
Trip #3: Tuesday
We woke up Tuesday morning, a day that John typically stays home with Evan, to a limping little boy who also started to sound a little hoarse. We figured, "great, a cold now too?" And just days before our trip for the holiday. John predicted that we may get to visit the Onaga doctor again if that was the case. I guess we can consider ourselves lucky that Evan got worse quickly and required to be seen by a doctor later that night. (Lucky is still not quite the right word, but at least we got him seen locally and quickly so he was able to mend himself before our trip). Regardless, this literally did happen at night. We had put Evan down to bed at his normal bedtime. John and I were about ready for bed ourselves when Evan awoke coughing and sounding like he was nearly choking. So, we called the on call nurse, and they directed us to take him to after hours care at Children's Hospital. Given Evan had a similar cold in mid-April, we kind of figured what the doctor would do: give him a steroid medicine to reduce the inflammation in his airways and call it good. However, from our experience last month, that steriod medicine made a HUGE difference, allowing Evan to get over the cold in a few days, while those of us who caught it (namely me, but also John) took weeks!
Either way, we knew the medicine was needed and drove this sleepy boy to the hospital in his jammies. He was surprisingly alert and happy on the drive there, after the initial shock of us waking him up by strapping him into his car seat wore off. We were seen by the triage nurse right away, who said it sounded like Evan had croup. We were then ushered into an exam room, where we waited at least 30 minutes to be seen by the doc. The doc was very friendly, took his time to answer any questions we had and made sure we understood everything, and was the only doctor that Evan didn't scream at when he examined him (perhaps Evan was just a little tired and out of it too?). Either way, the doc confirmed the croup and ordered the steroid medicine, which took the nurse another 30 minutes to bring in. John and I were exhausted. Evan was on a midnight high playing with everything in the exam room (including the non-toy items). After he got his medicine, which he took down like a champ (in part thanks to the cherry syrup flavoring this time...as opposed to the apple juice last time), we headed home. We decided to keep him home from daycare again the next day to help him heal and avoid the virus spreading. Like before, within a day (or two) he was pretty much back to normal. Thank goodness we were over this rough week and able to head out on a long weekend holiday visit to Kansas without any more worries!
1 comment:
Oh man, this sounded really rough! Glad things are back to normal now.
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