Roseola

On Monday of this week, AJ woke up with a fever.  I noticed it as I was changing his diaper - he was burning up! He also was acting very somber throughout the whole day - he just wasn't his happy self at all.  While I was at work, it seemed that Daddy couldn't do anything right in AJ's eyes.  He was super cranky and couldn't be consoled until he finally fell asleep on Daddy's chest for about 2 hours 'til I got home (which is very out of the ordinary for him).  I chalked it up to him teething since I had noticed his other 'fang' looked to be breaking through any time now.  But then when I went back into work that afternoon Babcia and Cioci Kimmy watched AJ for a bit and they noticed he was pulling at his right ear.  I figured I would wait another day or two and see how he was doing because I'm not that Mom that will call the doctor the second something is wrong with my kid.

Well, Tuesday rolled around and AJ still had a fever (he wasn't burning up as much as he was the day before).  Both Grandma and Grandpa didn't notice any ear pulling throughout the day so again, I figured it was just teething.  

Now it was Wednesday and the fever seemed to be breaking a little bit, but he was still warmer than normal.  Babcia and Cioci Kimmy watched AJ for the afternoon while I went into work and they called me to tell me he was now pulling on his left ear.  That was it - I decided the fever had been going on too long and if he was pulling on his other ear now, maybe there was something wrong.  So I left work 2 hours early, picked up AJ and off we went to Dr. Long's office for open hours.  We spent quite a bit of time waiting around to see Dr. Long, but when we did he told me that AJ's ears looked perfect and he couldn't see anything wrong with him.  So I went home feeling a bit defeated and again just thought AJ was teething.  

Now it's Thursday and when I go in to get AJ from his crib in the morning, I noticed he has a rash all over his face.  As I'm changing him, I notice the rash is all over his torso and his back too. 

I called my cousin Jen who lives right down the road and she came up to look at it for me.  She thought it was prickly heat rash.  I couldn't understand though why he would have a heat rash because he wasn't bundled up while he was sleeping at all.  Either way, the rash didn't seem to be bothering him so I figured if it was indeed a heat rash, it would go away on its own throughout the day.  Well, fast forward to later in the day when I went to pick up AJ from Babcia and Dziadzi's house...Babcia now told me that the rash seemed to be bothering AJ around his ears.  It hadn't disappeared at all - it seemed to be staying around for a bit.  I tried to call Dr. Long's office, but his office is closed on Thursdays so Babcia and I headed off to Target to pick up some Benadryl for the little guy.  Well, they only make Benadryl for children 6 years or older but the nice Target pharmacist said to call the on-call pediatrician and maybe he/she would give out a smaller dosing schedule for infants.  So I went home and ended up calling our insurance carrier's nurseline. I explained everything to the on-call nurse and she said it seemed as though AJ had roseola, which is a viral infection that usually starts out with a fever and ends with a rash.  She was about to give me dosing information for Benadryl until I told her that AJ was only 19lbs (they only have dosing information for kids 20lbs+.  Great.  Just fabulous.)  She did mention that we could use hydrocortizone cream very sparingly on areas that seemed to be bothering AJ though, but that we should try a cool bath with baking soda first.  So off to the bathtub we went with the baking soda.  It seemed to help AJ out a little bit, but later that evening I noticed he was scratching around his ears still so around 8pm Michael ran out to Walgreen's to pick up some hydrocortizone cream.  Once Michael got back, I put the cream on AJ and off he went to bed. (The cream seemed to help).

Friday rolls around and when I went into AJ's room to wake him up I noticed the rash had gotten worse on his face.  It seemed to have almost gone away on his back, but it was still on his torso and face.  I called Dr. Long's office right away and he confirmed that he had roseola.  The only thing we could do was to wait it out as the rash normally disappears within a few days.  My poor little guy.  As the day rolled on, the rash didn't seem to be bothering AJ (thank goodness!).

Fast forward to this morning.  AJ woke up around 2am and wouldn't go back down for over an hour.  Every time I tried to put him back in his crib, he would scream so loudly so I ended up bringing him into our bed.  He finally fell asleep around 3:20am and when he finally woke up for the day, the rash had disappeared!  YAY!  The roseola was finally gone!!  Thank goodness!  My poor little pumpkin was finally free from the viral infection.  

Looking back on it all - the only good thing about roseola is that once you have it - you are usually immune to it for life.  That's the only positive that has come out of this.