Waiting for Act III

I'm generally not superstitious. However, I find myself in a holding pattern. Sunday brought an unpleasant event and today brought a diagnosis of Henoch-Schonlein Pupura for SP. SP has been fighting off some sort of congestion/coughing gunk for about 2 weeks. Saturday night he began complaining that his legs and feet hurt when he walked and that he had "mosquito bites" on his feet. It was bed-time and I assumed that it was probably due to being worn down from his illness and having gone on an outing up the canyon to see the elk. I put him to bed and he seemed fine on Sunday. Monday he came home from school complaining that his penis hurt. I put him in the tub for a bath in case it was just irritation from not being clean (he has been a bit sloppy lately when he pees and has had to change his pants and unders several times because of a failure to properly aim). As I filled the tub with water, I noticed that his legs were covered with little red dots - kind of like insect bites except a few that were rather purple. He also had a rash on the tops of his toes.

You can see a few of the spots on his foot and leg here but the flash makes them a little hard to see. The ones on his thigh were dime-size and purple.

I called my mom and asked her opinion but it wasn't anything she was familiar with. She suggested we go to the doctor which I had already decided we would do in the morning. After I got the boys to bed, I started thinking about the spots combined with the pain in the legs and feet and decided it sounded alot like HSP. Since my niece had had this several years ago, I called Sillya to ask her opinion. During the course of the conversation, we discovered that scrotal pain is common in boys with HSP and I was about 80% sure at that point. First thing this morning, I called the doctor and we went in at 9am. It wasn't our regular pediatrician but another doctor in the same office. I told him the symptoms and he began to look him over. As he did so, I noticed how swollen SP's feet and ankles were. The doctor said he was pretty sure he knew what it was but wanted to do a urine test to confirm it. As he left the exam room, I was 100% sure he was going to tell us HSP after the urine test. After the test was complete, he came back and pronounced it HSP and started telling how rare it was and began to tell me about it. I told him I was familiar with it because of my niece.

But since all three of you - my faithful readers, you! - are probably not familiar with HSP, I'll give you a brief overview. It's basically an allergic reaction to a virus the patient has had recently. Doctors still aren't sure of the exact trigger but that is the best guess. The result is an inflammation of the blood vessels which then bleed into the skin causing a rash (which in fancy doctor-talk is called purpura. Henoch and Schonlein are the doctor who identified the ailment and his teacher.) The intestines and kidneys may also bleed. The skin rash - which generally occurs on the legs, buttocks and elbows - is usually accompanied by pain and swelling in the joints and abdominal pain. There isn't really a treatment for it other than pain management and the symptoms go away on their own in approximately a month. Rarely, kidney damage and/or failure occur. We have been quite fortunate thus far in that Griffin's symptoms haven't been much more painful than what you would expect with a serious flu. My niece was in incredible pain and had severe swelling.

Bottom line: we need to visit the doctor once a week for the next month to three months to test SP's urine and blood pressure and then once a month for up to six months until it is certain that he is better. I'm actually somewhat relieved that it's not flea bites as the Mister suggested!

But supposedly things happen in three's, so I am a bit leery of what's around the corner. I have been been able to deal with the first two occurrences and I'm hoping that whatever happens next, I will be able to continue to trust in the Lord to help me through. Any prayers or encouraging thoughts are welcome.

P.S. I could also use some advice on how to convince the Mister not to treat SP as if he were going to die tomorrow. He tends to be a little pessimistic at the best of times and all he has been able to see is that kidney failure is a possibility. I'm not sure that I can handle one more despairing look or depressed sigh when he looks at SP. On the plus side, I can probably convince him to handle a few more bedtimes!