After five years of the preschool experience, I’ve seen a letter a year (at least, it seems) warning of the presence of Fifth Disease in one classroom or another. We managed to escape it’s rashy glare until now.
On Sunday, while in church I noticed this horrible rash on Thomas’ cheeks. I thought maybe he was having a reaction to the detergent still in his shirt since he was wearing a collared shirt and it was rubbing on his cheeks. It would be an odd occurrence, but Thomas has been known to have sensitive skin, so I just never say never.
It didn’t really get better when he got home and changed, but he had no other symptoms so we didn’t worry about it. This is what he looked like a day or two later (and yes, in need of a trim!)
That night I went to check on him before I went to bed (as I do every night) and since he had removed his shirt, I could see he had welts and a rash over his entire torso. I immediately consulted Dr. Google and decided it must be Fifth Disease. With Fifths, the child has the symptoms of a cold and maybe a mild fever and headache and then they get better. Then a week or two after the first onset of “cold” symptoms, the rash appears. They are no longer contagious, but man, it is alarming! Oh, and yes, they had the cold symptoms sometime between Christmas and New Year’s and Thomas complained of a headache once or twice during that time (which isn’t completely abnormal for him).
You can’t see well from this picture, but the rash now covers his entire torso and down his arms and legs.
Craziness. It should go away within a week. Let’s hope!
Oh, and of course the day after Thomas’ rash first appeared, our little Doodlebug didn’t want to be left out.
So far his rash on the rest of his body isn’t as bad, but man…it’s sad looking at these two this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment