Our support of the health care industry in the United States has continued and we have expanded it to our southern neighbor as well.

A couple of days after we arrived in Mexico, Belén’s purpura rash went away, but around the same time, she started tugging on her ear.  We had noticed a medical clinic that was open 24 hours, in the mall close to our hotel so we decided to get the ear checked out the following day.

We took her to the clinic in her jammies and saw a doctor who like everyone in Mexico was amazed by Belén’s blue blue eyes.  He commented that the receptionist in the clinic pays a lot of money to buy contacts that are the color of Belén’s eyes naturally.

He did a thorough exam of her and then concluded she had swimmer’s ear and gave us some ear drops to administer for three days.  We paid $70 USD and were promised free follow up visits if needed.

Knowing our luck with doctors and Belén in the past three months, I had a sneaking suspicion we might be seeing them again.

Sure enough, the following night, she woke up clearly in pain and she had a fever.  Suddenly the Infant Motrin and Tylenol recall in the United States affected us as all of the fever reducers we had brought with us were on the recall list.  We decided to take advantage of the 24 hourness of the clinic and return at 3am with our sick child.

We rung the bell and a man asked who it was.  Then, a female doctor came to the door and showed us to an exam room.  She did a very thorough exam of our daughter and concluded her swimmer’s ear had turned into an ear infection, which was causing the fever.  She wrote us a prescription for a Mexican brand of amoxicillin and also wrote the name down of a fever reducer we could buy at the pharmacy.  Since it was not open at such an early hour (or late depending on your tendencies), she gave us an rectal suppository to use to reduce the fever.

Fast forward to the three of us back in our hotel room, trying to keep a Mexican fever reducing pill shoved up Beléns bum.  Andy tried for awhile and said that it wasn’t going to stay.  Andy walked out to the lobby to get the faint WiFi signal to search online to see how one administers a rectal suppository to a baby.  Turns out, you need to hold it there ten minutes….apparently rectal suppositories take time.  Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Eventually, we all went back to sleep and Belén’s fever went down.  In the morning Andy went to get the drugs from the pharmacy and once he was back, he was having trouble figuring out what to do with them.  They were both little white bottles of fine powder.  He called the doctor’s office to find out and there was some difficulty on their end answering the question, so he ended up figuring out on his own that you need to mix it with water.

About 20 minutes later, the doctor from the previous night called our hotel room and asked what the question was with the drugs.  Andy explained and then the doctor said she was already in our hotel to visit another patient, so she offered to COME TO OUR HOTEL ROOM and check in on Belén.  Um, that would NEVER happen in the US…AND she was still working for the original $70 we paid at the first visit.  Needless to say, we were amazed.

After about 36 hours, Belén’s fever was gone and she seemed to be on the road to recovery.

We obsessively watched her legs for the purpura to return.

It did less than a day later…but only on her legs and arms this time which we took as a good sign since it should be reducing in severity with each return.

While we were certainly not happy to see it, by this point, it did not cause us much concern and we just went along with things.  It did create considerable looks from other people throughout the remainder of the trip.  People would look at this cute little baby/toddler with amazing blue eyes and then you would see them notice her legs and look away back to her face.  Some of the Mexicans would ask what she was allergic to but Americans and Canadians would never say a word, except for a very forward lady at a small town I look forward to telling you about in a blog that is coming soon.

Fast forward to Monday’s urine analysis and blood pressure check which we are supposed to be doing weekly for the next three months to ensure the HSP (her diagnosis for the purpura) had not caused kidney failure.  I caught our doctor up on what had happened while we were in Mexico and since it was the third occurrence of the reaction, she decided to send Belén to a specialist, specifically the Pediatric Infectious Disease doctor.

So today Andy and I took Belén to see this new doctor.  The entire experience with this doctor was so out of the norm and positive.

We showed up to a building adjacent to the hospital and checked in and filled out paperwork.  Once the paperwork was ready, the doctor came out and met us in the waiting area.  He walked us back to the office asking us how we were doing, etc.  (No nurses involved!) It was immediately clear that he had thoroughly read Belén’s file and began asking us additional questions to fill in any holes or questions in his mind.  He did an exam of Belén and was able to see the remnants of purpura #3 that is beginning to fade on her legs and is almost completely gone from her arms.

After probably 30 minutes of talking with us and examining her, he told us he agrees that everything matches the HSP diagnosis we had already been given.  Since he was open to them, and clearly in no hurry, I asked dozens of questions we have had about the diagnosis.

Is it an illness or a defect?

Answer: defect where the body for some reason thinks it needs to react to an illness in this manner

How long should it last?

Answer: months, not years

Have all three episodes all been apart of the same episode?

Answer: yes

Should I wait to have her 1-year shots until the body is back to normal?

Answer: yes, that would probably be good since she was previously up-to-date with immunizations

You get the picture.

The doctor today ended up spending almost an entire HOUR with us.  And I was finally the one that was like, “Okay, great, thank you so much.  We gotta go and we hope we don’t have to see you again.”

When has that EVER happened at the doctor’s office?

As we were walking out he concluded by saying that the HSP diagnosis is VERY good news because it is by far the most mild cause of the purpura rash.  So, yay!

In case you were wondering, this is the long-winded response to “How’s Belén’s rash doing?” which a lot of people have asked lately.

Now we just need to hope that no outlier symptoms crop up AND that it does not cause kidney failure (it is rare.)

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