It's about time I blog about the event that rocked our world this year. As I said in the earlier post, Jackson started feeling sick on Saturday, April 27th. We had a really busy week ahead of us with Tyler's parents arriving Tuesday night, his graduation on Friday, a garage sale Saturday, and the house getting packed Sunday and moving Monday. So when we took his temperature Saturday afternoon and it said 102, I wasn't thrilled. At first the fever was his only symptom. He was a little lethargic but still had a good appetite. We had big plans for that night but ended up going to a quick dinner and stopped by Downtown Winter Garden.
The next day at church Tyler and I were both speaking in Sacrament Meeting and I was also giving a Young Womens' lesson. So yeah, there was no staying home option. Jackson got a very noticeable rash that day and by looking it up and talking to my mom I thought he had Fifths Disease, which is basically just a fever and a rash. Once the rash appears it's not contagious so I figured he was fine to go to nursery. He still wasn't acting totally normal though and his appetite decreased and I was hoping he'd feel better once the rash and fever went away. Tyler had to fly to Hartford later that night so I was on my home until he flew home Tuesday night and his parents arrived around midnight.
Monday was more of the same. Very low appetite and energy levels, he didn't sleep very well and still had a fever but the rash was gone. But then it would come back. I was pretty confused as to what it could be and I wasn't so sure it was fifth's disease anymore. That night he was so restless in his sleep that I had him come sleep with me in my bed.
Tuesday we woke up with some new random symptoms, he was peeling on his face, goopy red eyes and his lips were extremely chapped. Being a Florida boy I had never seen these symptoms on the buddy. It just confused me more and made me look up online what this could possibly be. When I couldn't find any answers I called the doctor and randomly all their phones were down. How does that happen? We went to the park for play group despite some bad weather. I thought Jackson would be happy seeing some friends and it was our last day to go! But the weather must have scared everyone else off and we were the only ones there. I had a beach towel in the car that I used to wipe down all the equipment for my kids to play, and then it started raining again so we left.
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| Heading home from the park |
He said it was not strep, not scarlet fever, not fifths disease and probably not an allergy. He was starting to believe it was Kawasaki Disease and that we needed to go to the hospital immediately. I was in shock and made him repeat himself several times. What is this thing called? Kawasaki? Like the motorcycles? Seriously the hospital right now? Why? What's wrong? What do I do with my other baby? My husband is out of town! We are moving on Monday! And there were some tears flowing for sure. But he told me the main reason he was so confident of Kawisaki was the tenderness of the specific area on his tummy near the liver and gallbladder when he applied pressure there. That is a sign. He didn't have all of the symptoms but the major ones are fever, rash, dry skin and conjunctivitis of the eyes. He had all those. But normally you have a very high fever for at least 5 days, his wasn't too high, the highest was 102 the first day and had just started 4 days prior. He didn't have swollen hands or feet or swollen lymph nodes or a strawberry red tongue. But Dr. Coffman had diagnosed this a few times before and is most common in boys his age. It's not known how children contract the disease, but it can permanently damage the heart if not caught fast. Hopefully we caught it fast and he'll be fine. It could be another virus also, but its tricky because there is no sure way to test someone for the disease. It's pretty much diagnosed by ruling out others and matching up the symptoms. But he was betting Kawisaki and had already called the hospital to start arranging a room for him at Arnold Palmer Childerns' Hospital (across the street and connected to Winnie Palmer Hosptial where I delivered my babies)
We left the doctor and headed home to get ready for the hospital. I made some calls and arranged for Semra to come over and watch Abbie. She ended up staying over at the house until 10 that night, bless her heart. Anyways, I also called Tyler called my family and started packing overnight bags for Jackson and myself. I had no idea what was in store. Tyler started looking things up online and tried to reassure me that he will be ok since we caught it so fast. He tried to switch his flight to earlier but he was already on the earliest flight out that night. So he would get in at 10 pm, I think the dr appointment was at 130, and we were home getting ready for the hospital at 2:45. Semra came over with her two girls and I headed off with Jackson to the hospital. He was watching Brave in our new DVD player in the van and had no idea what was really happening...
To be continued
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