Scary Days

Last week while still in Colorado we had to take Ben to the ER twice. One evening we got home and noticed he had these red splotchy spots all over his left leg. It wasn't like a normal rash. It looked like spots of blood underneath the skin. The next day we took him to an urgent care who then sent us to the ER for an ultrasound. They wanted to make sure there were no bloods clots in his leg. The ultrasound was normal, so the doctor said to take him to a dermatologist the next day. We were able to get in with a dermatologist and she didn't really have an reason as to why he had the spots. She said the spots were petechiae which happens when blood pools in the blood vessels. Hearing that was pretty scary, but she assured us that he looked quite healthy and it wasn't anything urgent. A couple of hours later though, we noticed that he was getting them on the other leg, which they told us if it got worse to go back to the ER. So back at the ER they got a pediatrician involved. She wanted a lot of blood work run to make sure his blood counts were normal. For the next couple of hours they tried 5 different times to draw blood from his arms and hands. It was so awful. I have never seen him cry like that before. He had me crying as well. Finally a NICU nurse was able to draw his blood. Everything looked normal except his platelets were a little high, indicating what they think was a viral infection. That made sense because that day Shawn and I both felt feverish and achy. On Monday, I took him to the pediatrician and he agreed that was probably what caused his rash. We are so thankful he is ok now and it wasn't anything more serious.