The Diagnosis

Thursday morning, January 27, 2011. After an uneventful night, we are hopeful that Deborah is on the mend and that the rash is just part of some random virus going around. Around 8 o'clock I wake her up (she is normally an early riser) and check her out. Fever? Check, and pretty warm too. Rash? Spreading to her arms and legs, and quite inflammed and warm to the touch. New symptom: her right eye is starting to appear bloodshot. Is this a new symptom, what? She is still tired but willing to get up and get dressed so we can go visit the doctor. No one else has any symptoms at all so I pack up Deborah and off to The Walk In Medical Clinic we go to have Dr. Mack check her out.

Thankfully the wait is short and we brought a book to pass the time; The Complete Madeline. At that time, I realized how long it has been since she has needed to go to a doctor; he had last seen her in 2008! So, new paperwork had to be filled out, but in short order we are in the exam room and the good Dr. takes a look. He and suspects strep with a sideline of scarletina, so he swabs her throat and runs a culture there at the office. A few minutes later he returns with the results:Negative for strep. We discuss symptoms some more and then he refers us to the Women's and Children's Hospital (I know it as Regional, but the University system has recently bought it out and changed things up) for them to take a look.

After a quick call to Dan to let him know we were headed over to the hospital and a mass text to friends and family asking for prayer, we were off. The Dr.'s office had called ahead, so the ER staff was ready for us and got her into a room while I filled out the necessary papers. Through this entire thing Deborah is calm and cooperative, everyone is impressed with how mature she is. :) When shown the pain scale, she said that she did not really hurt so she picked a "2"; the nurse commented that most adults make out like they are dying and choose a 9 or a 10 all the time, lol!

So the ER doctor and nurse check her out, take her medical history, razz me for not having a pediatrician and for not having Deborah immunized, blah, blah, blah, and are still stumped. Everyone can tell she is dehydrated, has a fever and a rash, but the rest is a mystery. And now her eyes are bloodshot as if she has been on a 3 day bender, but her spirits remain upbeat. The ER room has a tv with a remote and, much to Deborah's delight, cable tv! Deborah is now content to move in, perhaps forever, lol! They run another strep test along with several blood tests and ask for a urine sample. Um, she has not peed since the day before and today is not looking too promising either. They agree to letting us try to hydrate her orally before putting in an IV; bring on the popsicles! A small bottle of water, cup of ice cream, and 3 popsicles later, Deborah announces (during a commercial)that she can now go to the bathroom. Yeah! Now we wait.

The doctor returns with the results, nothing conclusive but the blood and urine tests are giving some useful information. Not surprisingly, the pediatric docs are called in from upstairs - they come in to review her history and symptoms with us (by this time Dan has joined us) and they too are baffled. They go off to review the results of the tests with some collegues - away from the parents so we cannot see that they are just as confused as we are - and Praise the Lord! A specialist in childhood diseases ( I am sure he had a loftier title, but it slips the mind now) was in the lunch room and says it is typical Kawasaki's Disease, no question about it. The pediatric docs return triumphant with a diagnosis and into the hospital proper for treatment we go.