ER Visit

Edited: Update - The hospital called while I was out today. According to Aaron, the doctor said that Caleb has a virus consistant with one you would get from a petting zoo. Since we haven't been to a petting zoo, it's assumed that he picked it up from a park bench or the playground.

At about 5:30 this evening, I took Caleb's shirt off to clean him up from dinner. It was at that time that I realized something was wrong with him. On his back he had a bright red patch about the size of my palm. It looked like he had a sunburn in that one spot. I thought it was strange so decided to keep an eye on him. Over the next hour and a half he started to develop more rash patches over the rest of his body. It had spread to his stomach, arms, legs, and the rest of his back. Of course this was the evening that Aaron was out for "team building". Luckily he called at 7 and said he was on his way home. Upon his arrival, he confirmed that I was not just being paranoid and we should take him to the ER. I packed him up and headed over.

The hospital is less than a 5 minute drive from our house. This is one of the nicest ER's I've been to, not that I've been to a lot. They have a seperate ER for children. In the children's area they have doctors who are pediatricians and nurses who know how to work with children and keep them calm. Anyway, we went to triage. As I unzipped his pj's the nurses, Debbi (who had the cutest British accent) and Jo (who was the sweet grandmotherly type), both stated that the rash didn't look too bad. That is until I pulled the pj's completely off and they saw his back. That's when they pulled out the paperwork, gave him his id bracelet and asked for the insurance card. They also gave him a cute little stuffed dinosaur that someone had made. They also gave us acute little handmade bear to take home for his sister who was waiting at home with Daddy to find out what was wrong with her brother. They were both very sweet nurses.

We got all checked into our room, which had a tv with cartoons. We turned on The Incredi*bles movie. They also had a basket full of books to read. The room was very clean and had an actual door. This was a real room and not a cubicle. About 10 minutes later the doctor walked in. She looked at Caleb and said that he looked fine but to go ahead and take off his pj's. She too thoughth that the rash looked fine until she saw the patch on his back. "Interesting" was the word she used. She checked all of his vitals and swabbed his throught for a strep test. Suprising he didn't fight her on the strep test at all. He probably though she was just trying to feed him.

She returned 5 minutes later to tell us that the culture was negative. She said that rash definitely looked viral and we should watch it for the next few days. If it develops blisters or doesn't start to heal then we need to take him back to the doctor. Until then we let whatever it is run its course. All in all, we were in and out of the ER in one hour. That has to be a record! I can't get in and out of the regular doctors office for a scheduled appointment in one hour.