Little House on the Prairie

I started this journal to record my daily life, but, in order to decompress, I have talk about the past week in its entirety.

My daughter (Ghiana -7) wakes up crying last Saturday and complaining that her throat hurts. Okay. Colds have been going around, she must've caught one. An hour or so later, she complains that it hurts to swallow. Oh no! This could be serious! I make the decision to keep her home from karate and race off to find the thermometer. I take her temperature in each ear, thinking to myself how easy kids have it these days. Aha! Normal both times. So I have her gargle with warm water and lay down in my bed. For the next two hours, she talks at me non-stop (the latest installment of Days of Our Second Grade Lives, I believe) and eats more than her body weight in food. She's okay, I think. But, just in case, I monitor the temparature situation all day. At around 4pm that day, I notice a bunch of tiny little bumps on her neck. Hmmm...prickly heat? I investigate further. They're all over her neck and shoulders, and--what's this?--they are all over her stomach and chest. I start to panic. I grab my computer and look up symptoms of measles. I never had measles, so I don't know what they look like. According to the computer, measles are raised and red.

Okay, I have to stop there and interject something. I am a reference person. I don't believe there are many problems that I can't diagnose simply by opening a book or typing in a search string. However, someone should hip the entire medical reference community to the fact that NOT EVERYONE IS CAUCASION! It seems that every skin thing has "red" in the description. Just so you know (and I'm speaking as the proud mother of a dark-skinned child), this is SO not helpful.

So anyway, I decide to take her temperature again. Again it's normal. So, I rule out measles in my own mind. My child seems to be okay. She's bouncing off the walls by this time and has a healthy appetite. So I decide it's probably an allergic reaction to a recent insect bite and resolve to monitor the situation.

Sunday comes along, and the rash has spread. I now notice a few bumps across her nose. Also, her trunk area is peppered with the bumps. I monitor her temperature all day. She's active, in good spirits, and says her throat feels a little better. I check the site of the insect bite on her leg. It had a scab on it yesterday. Omigod, it's now an open wound. I query my child: did she pick at it? She says no. I don't believe her, but think it's not that big of a deal.

Monday - She goes to school. I'm off work because I've got stuff to take care of. I was going to have her see the doctor that day, but my car acted stupid so I spent a lot of time getting it fixed. I pick her up from school that day, and she tells me the bumps are on her lips now. I examine her, and, sure enough, she's right. She's not complaining though. And still no fever. We make valentines for her class.

Tuesday - That morning, her entire face now covered in bumps, I notice that the bumps around her nose are drying out. I think it's a good sign and give her more Benadryl. The sore on her leg, however, seems to be getting worse. But, no fever and she's in good spirits, so off she goes to school again. That evening when I pick her up, I notice she's walking funny. I ask her why. Because, she tells me, the bumps between her legs hurt when she rubs them together, but look at all the valentines she got! Children definitely lack focus. I decide she has to go to the doctor the next day.

Wednesday - I call the doctor's office first thing in the morning. They're swamped but can see her at 2:30p. I call my job...I obviously won't be in. I can't send the child to school walking like that. The child bounces off the wall all morning and eats everything within a one mile radius. We get to the doctors office, where we have to wait. Did I mention they were very busy that day? While we're waiting, after singing every song in her repertoire and reading every kids magazine known to man, my child decides she has to use the bathroom. I flag down the nurse and ask if it's okay. I mean, if they're going to need a urine sample, now would be a good time. She says they won't need a sample for a rash, so I let my daughter go take care of her business. Shortly after that, the doctor comes in, apologizes for the wait, and asks what the problem is. My daughter tells her she has a rash all over her body. The doctor takes a look at her face, then lifts her shirt to look at her trunk while she asks me if she's been complaining of a sore throat. Why yes. She complained on Saturday, I tell her, but hasn't really complained since and didn't have a fever. She makes my daughter say "Ahhhh" and looks down her throat. Then she turns to me and says she thinks my kid has strep throat and a classic case of scarlet fever.

Hold up. Did she say SCARLET FEVER? Why, yes, she did. Do people still get that? I mean, the last time I'd heard of anyone having scarlet fever was when Mary Ingalls had it on Little House on the Prairie. She later went blind, which they somehow attributed to her having scarlet fever when she was a child. Then she married a blind man, and, together they founded a school for blind children. 'Cause that Mary Ingalls always wanted to be a teacher, and she got good marks in school. Not like that Laura, who struggled early but then managed to get better...

Oh, sorry. It's just that I used to love that show. And I tend to ramble.

So apparently, Scarlet Fever is caused by a toxin that is released into the bloodstream from a strep infection. Except, hold the phone!

The book says it's characterized by a scarlet skin eruption and high fever. My child had no fever, and, as previously noted, she's brown-skinned so there was nothing remotely "scarlet" about it. I've posted a photo so that those of you with dark-skinned children will know exactly what this rash looks like on your children. They really should add these descriptions to the references.

Anyway, this whole strep thing is highly suspect to me. I mean, whenever I've had strep throat, not only did I have a high fever, but I was lethargic and couldn't eat anything! I ask the doctor if it's normal to have strep and no fever. She says it's not, but she likes these types of cases because they keep them on their toes. Great! Just my luck to give birth to the medical miracle child! {One day I'll tell all about last year when she had pneumonia, but her lungs sounded clear to every MD in the Detroit metro area!} I ask my child why she just can't have normal illnesses like everyone else. She just stares at me and doesn't respond. The question was rhetorical anyway.

And, by the way, the doctor decides she needs a urine sample to check her kidneys. Just to be safe. My child, of course, had just used the bathroom, so the well was dry. She couldn't squeeze another drop. So she'll get the urine test when she goes back in 10 days.

So she gets Penicillan for the Strep infection and a topical antibiotic for the wound (which apparently opened because of the Scarlet Fever), and we're on our merry way. Except she has to be on the antibiotic for 24 hours before she can go back to school (the doctor said the scarlet fever was NOT contagious but the strep throat was), so I had to keep her home on Thursday. And, you guessed it. She bounced off the walls all day, and I played more board games and Go Fish than I care to admit.

So that brings us to today. She's been on the antibiotic since Wednesday afternoon, so I took her to school this morning. Of course, the school won't administer her medicine (only for chronic illnesses--it's a liability issue you know) so I'm going to have to leave work early. The medicine is liquid and must be refrigerated, or else I would have just put it in her bag and told her to take it at Latch Key. Oh, but wait! I get a call at work from the school at about ten minutes to three. It seems they aren't having Latch Key today because they're out all next week for mid-winter break (it's a Detroit thang), and they weren't sure if I knew that. They'd sent flyers home on Wednesday and Thursday when, of course, my child wasn't at school, so no I didn't know it. I'd planned to leave work at 4pm, but I hurry up and finish the paperwork I was working on and pack up so I can race across town to pick her up. She gets out of school at 3:23pm, and I'm about 35 minutes away. Good thing I'm a leadfoot. But there HAD to be an accident between my job and the school, and traffic was slow. So I didn' get to the school until about 3:40pm. And, guess what? I wasn't even the last parent to pick my child up! When we left, there were still about 15 kids still there. So, apparently I wasn't the only one that didn't get the message.

So anyway, now the rash is starting to clear up a bit. Thank Goodness! And still no fever. Maybe next week will be less eventful.

~e