Fifth Disease

A few weeks ago the kids and I went up to visit my family. In the evening the adults were sitting around chatting when out of nowhere Scout ran downstairs clutching her head and crying that she had a headache. I picked her up...she was on fire...and held her while my sister ran into the kitchen to get her some tylenol. Before Emily got back, less than a minute later, Scout had fallen asleep in my arms.

A while later she woke up and threw up. She and I had a fitful night's sleep and ended up watching The Wonder Pets at 3am until she finally fell into a deep sleep around 7. She was crabby and sleepy the rest of the day with a little bit of a clear runny nose but by the time we got back home she was perky and just fine. I figured it was the flu.

About a week later we were visiting Troy's family when out of nowhere I felt like I was hit by a bus. I had a runny nose that I attributed to my allergies...to Idaho, not to Troy's family. My fever was 103.8 and so I laid down, took all the meds I could think of and got it under control. After a couple days of fighting the fever it finally went away, the runny nose cleared up and I was fine.

The day after I got that mysterious fever Scout produced another mysterious symptom of her own. She had a rash on both arms that was just red...not raised. We assumed she also had my allergies...to Idaho, not to Troy's family. It didn't look like hives and it was a little odd that Savannah hadn't reacted since she's our human litmus for allergens and hives-up at the drop of a hat. We all had sunburns at this point but this was definitely not part of the sunburn.

About 5 days ago I woke up with arthritis....or at least I thought I had. My fingers were swollen and painful, my knees screamed in agony when I went up or down the stairs or heaven forbid I squatted for a moment. My feet were swollen and itchy and I thought I saw a faint rash on my legs...but I convinced myself it was a trick of the light.

My shoulders, my elbows, my back...oh my back. Everything was so stiff and hurt so badly. I was certain I had some terrifying but undiagnosable disease that would do me in. Or maybe some weird case of athelete's foot that infected my joints....AAHHH! Turns out I just had a common childhood illness that I had somehow bypassed.

Fifth disease is common in children between the ages of 5 and 15. When kids get it often they don't even notice. It starts with a fever and flu like symptoms, a few days later you develop a lacey non-raised rash and in adults or older teens the rash can be accompanied by joint pain and arthritic symptoms. 40-60% of adults worldwide have already had it.

Our sunburns and Scout and my naturally rosy cheeks probably helped to mask the appearance of the rash and the excitement from all of our world travels distracted me from making the connection.

So suddenly I went from thinking I was dying to realizing that I just have a fun temporary all-over pain thing. It has given me an appreciation for people who live with chronic pain. I whined so much in just 4 days that I even annoyed myself. I think I crossed a line when Troy offered to hold my fudgesicle for me because it hurt to hold it myself!

It was difficult to find information about this so I thought I'd post it so at least my friends and family could know what's going on if I inadvertently infected you! (P.S. Sorry!!)

The research I've found says the painful stage can last for a couple of weeks. Here's to milking it for all it's worth!

UPDATE: As of Tuesday afternoon Random is now covered in a lovely lacey rash. 3 Gomms down...2 to go!