When I picked Belén up from daycare this evening, her cheeks had the purplish-red marks beneath the skin very reminiscent of the marks she had back in February which we theorized were an allergic reaction to Rocephin. It is kind of hard to see in this picture, but you can sort of see the issue on her cheek below.
When I got her home, I did a full body scan to see if the marks were showing up in other places. They are on her face, her ears and her arms and have so far eluded the rest of her body. She also had a rectal temperature of 101.6 degrees F so I became concerned.
I immediately called Andy and let him know. He soon arrived home and after a fruitless call to the St. Lukes on call nurse, we decided to take her to the Urgent Care that was still open to see if they had any ideas of what was going on.
As we suspected might happen, the PA at the Urgent Care did not give us a good idea of what the problem was. She basically told us that she “didn’t like the look of that purple color under the skin” and the fact that it looks like little burst capillaries. And it could be caused by a virus or it could be caused by something else and essentially we just treat the symptoms. She offered to draw blood if we wanted to but recommended that we take her into our pediatrician tomorrow to get her read on things. At that time we can draw blood or do whatever tests they deem fit. Yet again, the trip to the doctor was not worth the co-pay but at least we felt like we were doing something.
This is yet another one of a rash (appropriate word in this case) of non-standard skin ailments that have plagued our daughter since she was born. Like her father she has cold urticaria. On top of that, she had a “rare infant rash” in the form of strange bumps on her toes when she was one-week old as well as the aforementioned bruise-looking rash back in February which we presumed was an allergic reaction.
Andy and I sat down tonight and had a discussion about how we are going to be her health advocate and understand everything that the doctor considers as the problem and proposals for treatment. We feel like when she was so sick in February, perhaps we could have interjected our thoughts and desires into the medical conversation a little more forcefully. I always think about what Lance Armstrong said in his book, It’s Not About the Bike, that you have to be your own medical advocate and we are taking that more seriously this time around.
Hopefully we can get whatever it is figured out and ideally learn how to prevent it in the future, if this is to be a recurring thing. It is just so scary not knowing what is wrong with your child.
No related posts.
Comments on this entry are closed.