Mystery Illness

We're a healthy bunch, our little family of three. It's actually something we take great pride in, as if it's something we've achieved through our lifestyle choices (which is highly unlikely and much more likely the result of good genes and a whole lotta good luck).

We've been especially lucky with Gus. He skipped all of those ear infections, various strains of flus and other random illnesses that raged through his day care and schools. In fact, before last week we've only ever had to take Gus to the doctor once (aside from the usual routine check-ups and immunizations) when he was just an infant. It was because of a mystery red patch that appeared on one cheek. Our family doctor was confounded by it, as was the other doctor in her practice who checked Gus out to see if he could figure it out. We were prescribed the usual course of antibiotics, and the patch mysteriously went away, came back a second time and went away again, always remaining one of those mystery illnesses that most kids experience at some point.

And just to make sure we don't gloat too much about our good health, , we are now going through mystery illness #2. About two weeks ago, Gus developed a red bump on one of his toes. Vic thought it might be a bug bite, I was thinking that it might be a wart or a blister. When Gus complained about it, I told him to throw a band-aid on it (band-aids having fixed so many minor Gus-injuries in the past). This time though, the band-aid solution didn't work. The red spot got bigger and became more tender until it covered a good portion of the front of his toe and we decided it was time to find out what that spot was. Vic took him to a nearby walk-in clinic, the doctor declared it to be a staph infection, we were prescribed a course of antibiotics and told to keep an eye on the red spot. If it grew bigger or failed to get better, we were instructed to take him to the children's hospital.

Yeesh - maybe because we're so not used to illness of any kind, we were checking Gus' toe on the hour and while it didn't get worse, it also didn't get better. Saturday morning, we went into the children's hospital with Gus to get it checked out a second time. Luckily (for us), we were one of the only ones not suffering from swine or some other flu, so they shuttled us out of the waiting room quick and we were seen by this great nurse practitioner. She first ruled out a few non-bacterial possibilities (extensive history and x-rays to make sure it wasn't a foreign body or some kind of fracture), swabbed the red spot and made sure it would get plated up right away, and then went on to prescribe a more aggressive antibiotic. We're to follow-up with a doctor this Tuesday and in the meantime keep an eye on the toe to make sure it doesn't get worse.

We're back to checking the toe on the hour (which Gus is getting a little tired of) and I've even thought about taking pictures of it so that I could better tell whether it's getting worse or better. Next illness, I'm hoping for some good old fashioned chicken pox.