Monday, December 03, 2007

HSP: Henoch-Schönlein Purpura

D, the younger child, was diagnosed with HSP over the weekend. Purpura is Latin for purple, and that is tacked on because what starts off as a reddish rash turns purple.

I did some Christmas shopping with the boys in the morning on Saturday. Then, at around 2:30, while we were watching Star Wars III, D started complaining about his feet hurting. He had been complaining about his legs, but since he's almost 5 and asks for a food every half-hour, I figured it was just his bones growing.

But I took a look at his feet. Both were swollen, and he was limping on the left.

So I took him to a MedCheck, and they sent us to the ER. D was fun and smiley and adorable through most of this. Right up until they pulled out the needles. He went nuts about them taking blood out of his arm, but they also decided to go ahead and put an IV tube in there in case he needed to be checked in.

It broke my heart to hear my little boy repeating "Please take it out!" over and over.

A little later, a nurse wheeled in a TV and we watched A Bug's Life and D forgot about the IV. After we got the diagnosis, we started talking about going home, and D was afraid to let them take the IV out. He got over that a lot quicker, though.

Now his feet look horrible. The swelling has gone down, but he has a rash all over his feet and his legs and patootie. But he's still in good spirits and enjoying spending some time with his dad.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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