Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP)

***Warning-his posts contains pictures of less than clothed bums***

On May 19th the kids and I took a walk to the store and back, ate supper, and then I started to notice a few bumps/spots on Rylee's legs.  I facetimed my mom to get her opinion and she asked how far up the rash went.  At that point I found that they were also covering her bum.  It looked horrible.

As if all the bumps weren't concerning enough, pretty soon she couldn't even walk.  It was the craziest thing.  My mom recommended a baking soda bath.  

My RS president (who is also a nurse practitioner) seconded the bath and also brought us some children's benadryl.  My siblings were all very concerned and the general consensus was that we should take her to the ER.  Jonathan came home an hour early and one of our home teachers came to stay with Baylor and Corben (who were both sleeping) so that we could both go to the ER.  Thankfully the hospital is only about a mile up the road, but it seriously had the most confusing parking ever.  

The waiting room was PACKED so I figured we were in for a long wait, but we actually only sat in the waiting room for about 5 minutes before they took us back to a bed where we spent the next 2-3 hours.

(random side note...it was getting towards 2am when I was looking at facebook and saw the first post of that Chewbacca Mom video.  I was watching it and naturally CRACKING UP.  Tears pouring out of my eyes and Jonathan looking at me like I was crazy and causing a scene.  It literally was the first day it was up, so not even a *thing* yet.  I did have the thought that maybe I enjoyed it a little more because it was 2am, but after all the hullabaloo the next day/week, I felt validated in my tears of laughter. ;)

They pretty much new right away that it was Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP).  They did do a urine test (really tricky with a tired girl who can't walk/stand.  So glad Jonathan was there to help!) and took some blood to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with the kidneys.  Rylee thankfully was so knocked out from the benadryl that she slept through the whole blood iv part.

Rather than go on about it, here's the discharge papers from the hospital. (Or at least the relevant pages):

So basically, the only thing they said to do  was make sure she had plenty to drink and if her feet were hurting ("joint pain"), give her tylenol.  The next morning she was able to walk and I took her to the doctor for another urine test.  She was acting good as new, but boy her legs looked horrible.  All the redness had changed to purplish looking bruises and her feet were swollen.  They did give her a prescription at the doctor's office for a 4 day steroid to help with the swelling.  

Two days later it was getting close to bedtime and she started to complain that her feet were hurting and having trouble walking again, so I checked her legs and sure enough there were new spots.  The purple ones are the old ones, red ones were new.  

Two days later...same thing but slightly less severe spots, but her feet really hurt her this day.  I took a few videos of her trying to walk.  I felt a little bad for not helping, but I also wanted to make sure she wasn't faking (I don't think she was). 

On Day 8 she actually came down with something...slight fever, threw up, sleepy all day.  She looked pretty bad and that part on the discharge papers that said, "Seek immediate if there is severe abdominal pain or vomiting and nausea" did have me a little concerned, but not enough to take her in since nausea is also a side affect.  

Day 11, 4th recurrence...

They weren't kidding on the paper when they said multiple recurrences.

Day 13, 5th recurrence:

Day 17, 6th recurrence

So at this point I think we're good.  Knock on wood.  A few spots here and there are still possible, but for the most part she's much better.  Such a crazy thing.  

****Update****

We went on a trip to the beach and the kids all had bad colds.  I don't know if that's what revved it back up again, or if it was aggravated by the sand and salt water, but every day she was having new spots come up.  I didn't take pictures every day, but I did take them one day. 

Day 28, but you can see both purple spots (a few days old) and red spots (newer) all mixed together.