Illness Hits the Baughn Home

Last week, Craig was in bed for two days - a fever and generally feeling horribly. He broke out in a small rash on Saturday, but no other big symptoms. He was back up for work on Thursday and we didn't think too much more about it except that it was simply taking him a while to fully recover from this little flu bug.

Monday, Xander woke up with a slight pink coloration on his cheeks. As the week progressed, it got brighter and redder and spread to the back of his shoulders, down his arms and down his legs. Normally I don't get too concerned, but watching it get worse and worse was hard. Not only did each day bring more rash and a brighter red, the rash also stayed longer - the first day or so it would be bright for a bit, then seems to fade away a little. I didn't want to give him anything - he didn't have a fever, he wasn't lethargic and was acting fine otherwise.

Last night, Craig took him over to our good friend, John's house. John's a PA and is a wonderful resource to say, "Hey John - is this a big deal?" John took one short look at him and diagnosed it - Fifth Disease. Some odd things about Fifth Disease is that you can be contagious for up to 2 weeks before the rash occurs with little to no other symptoms. It's also called "Slapped Cheek" since it looks as though someone slapped the infected one across the cheeks. Once a child has Fifths, they can't get it again - kind of like chicken pox. Finally it can be passed to adults, which we now have decided that Craig has it. The symptoms on the CDC site match up almost perfectly with Craig's.

Apparently something is going around. We've heard of another child in his class that has Fifth and another child has Roseolla, which is also called Sixth Disease. Our poor spotted kids. Now it's just time to watch the other two kids.