So as many of you have already heard Ryan was diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease this week. It is a fairly rare disease but for as far as childhood diseases go not to awful. We took him to the ER last Sunday because the glands in the back of his neck were so swollen that he couldn't move his neck and he had fairly high fever. They said one of his ears looked red and it was just an earache and sent us home with some amoxicillin. He was still pretty sick but okay as long as he had ibuprofen and Tylenol in him his fever stayed low enough and he was okay. By Tuesday I called the doctor again because his glands were still so swollen and it didn't look like the amoxicillin was doing any good, the nurse told me that sometimes it can take up to 72 hours so call Wednesday if it wasn't getting any better. So Wednesday afternoon I called and made an appointment and by the time we went in Ryan had really red eyes, a strawberry tongue which is a red and inflamed tongue, and a rash all over his back. The doctor did a blood test to rule out pretty much out all of the other things it could be and gave an early diagnosis of Kawasaki Disease, it is kind of a weird disease there is no test for it and they don't know what causes it. It isn't contagious but it can be fatal if it isn't caught early enough. It causes aneurysms in the coronary arteries which can lead to a heart attack. Anyway she told us one of the basic symptoms is 5 days of fever along with every other symptom that he was showing. Since we only had 4 days of fever at that point they sent us home with a new anti-biotic just in case it was something else and set an appt for Friday morning to check up and if he didn't get better they would admit him to start the treatment for the Kawasaki Disease. So we went home and got another call that night that said one of his labs came back with poor liver function so we needed to stop giving him Tylenol. So we sent him to bed with just ibuprofen in him and he woke up at about 2:30 with a temp of 107.4. So we dosed him up with more ibuprofen and put him in the tub and got his fever down to 103 ish. Needless to say the next morning we called the doctor and they brought him in for a few more test just to make sure that it wasn't anything else and then admitted him to the hospital. They did a base line echo cardiogram to see if it had affected his heart yet and they didn't find anything to worry too much about. They gave him high doses of aspirin and in IV with ivig in it. On Friday morning he was doing a lot better but they kept him an extra day just to make sure that he wasn't relapsing. His mouth was still super sore and his stomach hurt from the high doses of aspirin but his fever was down so he felt tons better. We brought him home this morning with orders for a low dose of aspirin for 2 months. So now we will just wait it out he will have another echo in 2 weeks with a specialist from Salt Lake being there and than another one in 2 months just to make sure there were no last effects. So for now we are going to just hope his temp doesn't go back up and hopefully we are free to go with just a good scare and none worse for the wear!
This is a pic of Ryan's rash it covered his whole body by the time they admitted him.
Ryan looking pretty miserable in the hospital with Simba (Simba was sick to so he came to the hospital with Ryan)
Ryan on Day 2 feeling tons better and telling me that he felt almost healthy
So there is the whole story as of now he did have a slight temp after we came home so we are watching that carefully hoping he doesn't need to go back in for another batch! I just wanted to thank everyone for their prayers and messages of support!!!
Also thanks to my parents and Chris's parents for taking Olivia for us!
