Let's start from the very beginning...

A very good place to start.

I've told this story about 425364354 times and I'll tell it so many more times. I want to tell our story to every parent I know.

It was a Saturday morning that I'm sure many parents have experienced...Of course your child will show all signs of an impending illness on a Saturday morning. For us, it was the oh-so-dreaded strep throat. He had all the signs. "Mommy, it hurts when I swallow my spit." Low grade fever. White spots on the side of his throat. As MOM, I knew that I had it diagnosed. I just needed a doctor to confirm it and give us the antibiotics. So, off we went to a local pharmacy's clinic. After doing a rapid in-office strep test, it was confirmed that Julian had strep throat. Duh. I told her that. She didn't believe me at first because the test was very slow to come back positive. After getting out with our precious penicillin prescription, we went home for an evening of antibiotics, motrin/tylenol, and cuddles.

On Sunday, we continued our sick baby cuddle therapy and he seemed a little better. The only negative that I noticed was if he wasn't on the tylenol/motrin, his fever would shoot up. Since it was only day two of the antibiotics, I figured that they still needed a little time to work. So, we continued on with the meds.

On Monday, his fever was still going up and a few other symptoms were popping up. Daddy stayed home from school with him and sent me updates of his condition while I was at work all day. The whites of his eyes were turning red, starting at the outside corners. His fever was high. He had a light rash on his arms and legs. With these developments, I decided to make an appointment with his pediatrician.

Beginning of the red eyes (conjunctivitis) on Monday. It started in the corners like this.

At 3:55pm, we arrived at our family doctor's office. While we were waiting, Julian got sick in the trash can in the waiting room. At least he made it into the trash can, right?
On a little side note, when I told the receptionist what Julian had done and told her that I had it cleaned up and out of the trash can, she freaked out. What? Never seen a double bagged bag of vomit? They made me take it to a trash can outside. I was a little irritated.
Needless to say, Julian's little stunt had gotten us called right back to see the doctor. Score.
When nurse was doing his triage stuff, she seemed genuinely concerned. I was starting to feel like I had done the right thing by making this appointment...until the doctor walked in.

I explained that Julian was on day three of his fever while taking his antibiotics correctly. The doctor's response?

"Well, did the PA in the CVS clinic tell you that the fever could last for a few days?"
Um, no...But usually the fever gets LOWER when treated, right?

Me: "Well, his eyes started this red thing this morning...what could that be?"
Douche Doc: "You said he vomited in the waiting room? It looks like he strained his eyes doing that."
Me: "No, he JUST threw up. His eyes have been red all day."

I was getting more and more frustrated as the doctor continued his analysis of my sick child. I felt berated and like he just thought I was another over-protective, paranoid mom. Anyone who knows me, including my husband, will tell you that I don't jump at every sniffle and sneeze to make an appointment. We have waited out a three day stomach virus before without a trip to the doctor. This was different. There really was something wrong with my baby.

The doctor told me that it was just strep and to continue on with the antibiotics that were given to him.

I left that office in tears. Was I crazy, like the doctor made me feel? Maybe I was...

This was what he looked like on the car ride home from the doctor on Monday. :(

The next morning, Tuesday, Julian's condition continued to deteriorate. The whites of his eyes were getting more and more red, even zombie-like. Later, I learned that this is called conjunctivitis. His rash was getting darker and it covered almost his entire body, with the exception of his face. The fever was still present and was peaking at 103 degrees when the fever reducers wore off. We were preparing for my in-laws to fly in from South America, so my husband had been cleaning and taking care of a sick four year old all day while I worked. When I got home, we decided together that he was getting worse, not better. Time for another medical visit.

This is what the rash looked like on Tuesday. It was a little raised and he said it was itchy, but he didn't scratch it very much.

Since it was 5:00pm, we decided on an ExpressOne clinic that was attached to the local hospital. It was considered an emergency room by the hospital (ie: hospital co-pay, takes forever to see an actual doctor, doctor says five words to you and sends you home). I guess it was meant for lower critical situations and the wait was not as long as a traditional ER.
There were a few people in the waiting room, but we got called back pretty quick. While the nurse was taking Julian's vitals, he got sick in another trash can. He has the best warning and amazing aim. That's my boy.
His fever was still over 103 and now he had developed what is commonly known as "strawberry tongue". His tongue actually looked like a strawberry, seeds and all. It was weird. He looked like a sick little boy.

In the waiting room at the first ER on Tuesday night. Looks like a zombie, right?

We sat in a cold, quiet holding room while Julian slept in my lap. He was given a fever reducer while we waited for the doctor. After a while, the doctor came in and quickly came to the conclusion that Julian had developed scarlet fever from his strep throat. I felt like I had just gotten off of the Oregon Trail. Who gets scarlet fever anymore?

He ordered a strong injection of penicillin right in the tush. It was horrible. My baby was in so much pain from that shot. The nurse said that he should be feeling better almost immediately after the injection. I was hopeful, but something inside was still skeptical. I'm not even sure why, because I hadn't even given the antibiotics time to work before I doubted this doctor's diagnosis. We went home anyways and Julian was in bed by about 10:30pm. Before I turned in that night, I got online and started looking up scarlet fever. The only thing that didn't add up was the conjunctivitis. Scarlet fever did not show reddening of the eyes as one of the symptoms. A few other things did, but scarlet fever wasn't one of them. I fell asleep uneasy with the diagnosis.

Thank goodness for good friends during all of this. I was on the phone with an amazing childhood friend who had happened to marry an amazing man who was a doctor. I felt bad asking all of the questions that I had because I was sure they got "crazed mom" questions all the time. They did everything they could to help me and I could never thank them enough. So many friends on facebook, some I was close to and some that I hadn't seen since high school, were backing me up and making me feel less crazy as they read my posts. I'm proud of myself for picking these people as my friends.

At around 3:00am on Wednesday morning, Julian was awake with a fever of 103.4 degrees and was vomiting again. The antibiotics still were not working. I knew something was wrong.
I went to work and had planned on leaving early because my in-laws were arriving at the airport at about 1:30pm. I was running a tad behind and my husband called me a little irritated that I wasn't home yet. When I got home, he left to get his parents and I looked at my sick, sick boy laying on the couch. All of his symptoms were worsening. A new symptom that he had developed on Wednesday was that his lips were cracked and bleeding. He looked scary.

I started questioning the strep diagnosis in the first place. What if the office test had been a false positive? Then, I remembered that the PA had mentioned that all of the results were sent off to a lab for confirmation. I started calling any number that I could find to get those results. A super nice CVS Minute Clinic customer service representative was doing all that she could to help me. The test results were not back. She apologized with everything she had because she could hear the desperation in my voice and asked me to call back on Thursday and check again. Then I called the store that we went to on Saturday morning. There is no direct line to the actual clinic so I called the pharmacy and begged them to let me talk to the person working in the clinic. She was at lunch, but they did confirm that all lab results were in fact sent off for confirmation. I felt like I had hit a wall. I wanted to fix my baby.

When my husband returned with his parents, we decided that we needed to get another opinion. A lot of my friends suggested a different ER that had pediatric physicians on staff 24 hours a day. It was worth a shot, right? So, off we went to yet another doctor...All I was thinking was, "Please don't let another person make me feel crazy." 

This was Wednesday afternoon, right before we left for the second ER. Cracked, bleeding lips, rash on arms and lots of his body, horrible conjunctivitis. So scary.

We arrived at this ER at about 4:30pm. We walked in and I saw a lot of people waiting. Ugh.
They did some triage on Julian about 10 minutes after we arrived and he still had a high fever. Am I the only mom who kinda sorta wants her kid to have sick symptoms when going to the doctor? That sounds so bad as I re-read that, but I'm leaving it in. :)
After talking to us about symptoms and what had been going on, we got called back from the waiting room about 20 minutes after arriving. That was kind of strange for a full ER waiting room.
Going into this ER, I had a mental list of conditions and illnesses that I wanted ruled out. Among the many things that I had researched online, measles and Kawasaki Disease were a few of the things on my list. Most of these things were long shots, and I knew that. I just knew that there was something really wrong with my son. I wasn't leaving another place without a doctor telling me why my son didn't have something on my mental list.
Just walking to our holding room in this ER made me feel better. There were Eric Carle illustrations all over the walls. Everyone was so sweet and nice.
We were seen by a doctor right away. Another strange, but welcomed, characteristic of this ER.
She asked all of the questions that I had been answering all week. I hadn't even gone into my own personal list of illnesses. Hadn't mentioned one single thing that I had been researching.  Then she asked the one question that I remember better than all of the others.

Nice Doctor: "When did the fever start?"
Me: "On Saturday morning."

I will never forget the next few moments. It was like slow motion. I watched the doctor count on her fingers that number of days that Julian had a fever. Five days. Her next words would change my life.
Nice Doctor: "I think that he has Kawasaki Disease, but I need to consult with my colleagues at Texas Children's Hospital."

I cried. Not because I was sad. I cried because I wasn't a crazy, over-protective, paranoid mom.