Always Something

I got a phone call from Braden's teacher yesterday morning that I needed to come pick him up because he had a rash on his arms that was spreading quickly. I came right away and was going through a checklist: did we change laundry detergent? No. Did he eat anything different this morning? No. In fact, he didn't even want breakfast. I got to the school expecting a minor rash of minor concern. Poor boy, it was onto his face and his eyes were even swollen. I lifted up his shirt and his back was covered in these raised red splotches. Yes, I had already called the doctor and we were on our way. Luckily all these places are within 5 miles of each other. Anyway, we get there and the doctor's not sure what this rash is. She says his cheeks look like Fifth Disease, but the rash all over his body looks like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. She said it was probably not RMSF, but it looked just like it. That sounded like an intimidating diagnosis, but when she said it comes from a tick bite I figured that probably wasn't it. I answered more questions about our home environment, exposure to animals, water supply, diet, etc! She gave him some Benadryl and after 40 minutes it had only decreased the redness in his face. So, she took some blood from his right arm (another saga), and we took it up to the hospital for them to run it at their lab right away. The result: no bacterial infection, so we're going with Fifth Disease.

I get on the internet to look that up. The telltale sign is "slapped cheeks". It all starts coming back to me. On Tuesday and Wednesday (when it was 80 degrees outside), Braden came home with red cheeks. I thought he got a little sunburn since it was so hot. They weren't so red in the evening, but got worse when he'd go outside and run around. As I'm looking at all this on the internet his teacher calls to check on him. One of the mothers had called her to let her know that her son had missed the last two days due to Fifth Disease! Bingo! So, Braden was contagious on the days I thought he had a sunburn. We didn't notice him having a fever, but that is supposed to come with it as well in the early "slapped cheek" phase. His rash still looks bad and he is covered from head to toe. I read that the rash can actually last 1-3 weeks.

The positive side? He won't get it when he gets elementary school... and, I got to miss a day of work!! I actually have the ability to use my PTO at work now, so I didn't even have to stress about leaving the way I did! Landry is fine. We'll be looking out for the "slapped cheeks," but I'm just thinking positive that she won't get it.

Landry's thing these days is dressing herself, and then changing outfits a million times a day. We'll check on her after she's asleep and she'll be dressed with shirt, pants, socks, shoes, the whole bit. Oh yes, she'll sleep like that if we don't undress her in her sleep. Before we realized she was doing this, she stumbled into our bathroom dressed up all cute. What I didn't know at that time was that she had slept in that cute little outfit all night!! Shoes and all! I'm trying to let her be as independent as possible with her wardrobe choices, but it can be hard sometimes when she puts some pieces together! Independence is bliss to a 3 year old!