Not A Great Month Part One

May was not our best month.... For so many reasons.
But let's start here...
The day after we came home from the cabin, Boston broke out in a rash. 

We figured he was just allergic to something at the cabin and opted not to take him to the doctor. The rash slowly faded, but then he came down with a fever a few days later, so I took him into our doctor's night time clinic on a Friday night. His rash was mostly gone, but his skin was really rough and the PA did discover he had an ear infection. So he sent us home with a prescription for antibiotics. 

The following Monday, we had plans to go out to dinner with my sister and her husband, and our friend Shannon and her boyfriend. We had a sitter, we had plans... It was kind of a big deal.

Unfortunately, the night before Tyler had started sniffling. By morning he had a full fledged man cold. My mom said she would still watch our kids, but Tyler was going to hang out in Daniel's room so he didn't share his illness with the whole house. On our way to my parent's house, I started sniffling. And then Jaxen started sniffling. We made a quick trip into Sams Club near their house, and by the time we left the store, Jaxen and I were both definitely sick. In an effort to not share our germs, we canceled our plans and grabbed some hamburgers and ate at a nearby park with our kids. I was disappointed but it was still a nice evening. Although Boston was uncharacteristically grumpy...

The following morning (Tuesday), Boston woke up with a rash. 

This time much worse than before. He had a fever, his face was a little swollen and just overall didn't feel well. I was fortunate to get the last open appointment our pediatrician had later that day.  I took him to the doctor and he told me to take him off the antibiotic. Since Boston had been on the antibiotic for several days before the rash started, he wasn't certain it was an allergy, but he wanted to rule that out before doing blood work. He told me to call him the next day if the rash hadn't improved. He was concerned that Boston might have Kawasaki disease, but wanted to rule out an allergy before doing further tests. Kawasaki disease causes inflammation in the walls of medium sized arteries throughout the body (which is potentially life threatening) and some of the symptoms are a rash, fever, and red eyes, all of which Boston had. 

Wednesday morning, I got up to feed Boston and at first by the dim lamp-light in his bedroom, I thought the rash was gone. I was so relieved. But when I got him into my bedroom and turned on the lights I realized I was mistaken. I had been looking at his belly and couldn't see the angry red dots that had covered his tummy the day before, but I realized it was because his entire belly was just red. The rash had gotten worse and his face was much more swollen.

I was waiting until the afternoon, like the doctor had said to see if there would be any improvement, but the nurse called me to see how Boston was doing and when I told her she told me to take him right in to the hospital near us for blood work. Boss was so sad having his blood drawn, it made my heart hurt. He cried at first and then just gave up and laid there and whimpered. I wanted to cry for my poor sick baby. 

It felt like an eternity waiting for his lab results, but, fortunately, they only took a few hours. Our pediatrician called later that evening and told us his blood didn't show any signs of internal inflammation and that it could have been a virus or still an allergy to the antibiotic. We were so relieved! His fever was gone by morning and his rash slowly faded over the next couple of days. Although we still aren't entirely sure what caused either of the rashes, we were so grateful it wasn't anything serious and that he's back to being our happy, healthy, (chubby) little guy.