Can you say "Henoch-Schonlein Purpura"?

It all started Sunday morning. As we were getting Oliver ready for church, we noticed a raised, red spot on his forehead. We asked him if he had hit his head, but he couldn't remember and we couldn't recall any incident that would have caused it. So.... we ignored it and rushed to church because we can't ever seem to get to that place on time! By the time he went to class, we noticed a rash around his neck. It didn't look too serious, but an hour later his teacher came to get me because it had gotten worse. Tyler went home and gave him Benadryl. We assumed that it must be an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he had been taking for his earache. It got much better by that night.

During the night he throws up, everywhere! And in true, clean freak mode, I wash everything in his room... all his comforters, pillows, "guys"... you get the idea. We continue with the Benadryl for the rash, but by the next afternoon he is MUCH worse. Suddenly it dawns on me that I have changed laundry detergents. Activate clean freak mode again... and I wash EVERYTHING again. Plus, I worry that he must be super allergic to this particular detergent (since he threw up) and proceed to rewash anything I might have washed with this detergent. Since I can't really remember what I washed, I just go ahead and wash almost everything in the house. He seems better by that night.

When he wakes up Tuesday morning, it looks bad again. I call the pediatrician's nurse who tells me to keep giving the Benadryl and watch for difficulty breathing- otherwise it may just take a few days to get rid of the rash. But by Tuesday night, he has swelling on one foot and in one unmentionable place. He can't/won't walk because it hurts to bend the foot.

I decide to take him in to the doctor "first thing." The first appointment isn't until noon, which is good because it gives me time to work on my washing machine which has decided to become clogged (maybe because it wasn't designed to do 20 loads a day?). With an unexpectedly clean laundry room behind us (because if you have to pull out the washer and dryer, you might as well scrub in those places you can't see and never clean) we head to the pediatrician.

After speaking to the pediatrician for just a few minutes, she (our regular doc was not in)knows exactly what it is- Henoch-Schonlein Purpura. I don't fully understand it, maybe because no one really does, but sometimes when your body is attempting to fight off an infection something goes awry and you produce this awful rash. This is accompanied by swelling of the joints, nausea... all the symptoms Oliver is experiencing. It can sometimes cause problems if the kidneys become enflammed, so she did some blood work and a urine sample. She wanted us to wait for the 45 minutes it would take to get back the results and told us to just wait in the waiting room since he wasn't contagious. It was hilarious to watch everyone quickly scoot their children away from us after one look at Oliver's face (the spots there were, of course, most prominent). We spent the next little while in relative solitude as I read to Oliver on my lap and Tucker pulled every book off of the four shelf bookcase off- one book at a time.

Everything came back normal and with a cortizone treatment, Oliver should be back to normal in no time... or a month. We can't be sure yet. If I didn't know better, I would swear I was making this stuff up.