Porter House: Kawasaki Disease

Brent and I were completely caught off guard by this week and all that transpired because a simple trip to the doctor for a suspected ear infection turned into a week long stay at Children's hospital treating Parker for a rare disease called Kawasaki Disease.

All this came about when Parker started to run a fever and because he was messing with his ears, I assumed he was getting another ear infection as he had 2 about a month prior. I took him to the doctor but his ears looked clear but his throat was little red so the doctor assumed it may have strep. The initial strep test came back negative but they went ahead and sent it off to run a culture and we would get the results in 72 hours. We started him on the antibiotics and figured he would be getting better pretty soon.

That night, Parker was crying all night and his fever was getting worse, Parker was so hot. That morning, when I was changing his clothes, he had a rash all over his body and his lips and eyes were so red. I didn't think much about his red lips and eyes, I figured that was because he was just so hot with fever but the rash was throwing me off. Why would he have a rash because he shouldn't be getting worse, he should be getting better because we started him on the antibiotics already.

I called the doctor and told them that Parker looks to be doing worse and now has a rash. They told me to bring him in and we would take it from there.

To my shock and surprise, after his doctor looked him over, he said I'm going to tell you something that sounds scary...he said I suspect that Parker has Kawasaki Disease and he asked that we get Parker to Children's hospital immediately. He quickly explained what Kawasaki Disease was and mom and I headed straight to Children's.

There is no test for Kawasaki so you have to first eliminate all other causes and once there are at least 5 signs of Kawasaki, then you can declare the patient has Kawasaki.

Kawasaki is an illness that causes inflammation in arteries, veins and capillaries and is the most common cause of heart disease in children and the exact cause of Kawasaki is still unknown.

So they had to draw Parker's blood, extract urine and swab his nose and place an IV in his little tiny hand. It was a terrible experience and I wanted nothing more than to be the one sick instead of him. We had to wait for all the test results as well as let a day or so pass to see if his fever kept spiking.

After several long days, all his test results came back negative ruling out all viruses and bacterias and his fever kept going up so finally they declared he did in fact have kawasaki. They started the IV treatment and thankfully he started to show signs of improvement hours after treatment.

It was so heartwarming to see Parker smiling again because for the past few days, he had not smiled at all which was completely not like him.

My mom was my rock and stayed with me the whole time while Brent made sure Preston Jack was taken care of.

We had a slight set back when Parker's EKG came back abnormal so we had to stay longer for observation. We were finally released to go home but were asked to follow up the next day with a cardiologist.

Doctor Sonnen referred us to a cardiologist and because of Parker's age, we able to get in right away. Thankfully all his results came back in normal range and all we needed to do from here on out was give Parker aspirin everyday for the next 8 weeks and then do a follow up cardiologist appointment.

8 weeks later, we followed up with the cardiologist and Parker's results were completely normal!!!!

What a whirlwind but God was by our side the entire time and we have our sweet, smiling Parker Bear back!!!

Rash