About a week later, Mia came down with similar symptoms. We had been monitoring her fever and making sure she got rest.
The Cedar Hills Family Festival was in full swing. Each year, they do a swim night at the Pleasant Grove pool. We had been gearing up to take the kids and have some fun at the pool. A couple hours before we were set to leave, Mia's fever got worse. When we saw that it was 106 degrees, we decided that one of us would need to take her to the emergency room while the other went with the rest of the kids to the swim night.
Stef took Mia to the American Fork E.R, while I took the other three to the pool. I kept an eye on the kids while waiting nervously for news. The doctors assumed it was either Strep or Mono, so they did a Strep culture first. Once that came back positive, they sent Mia home with a prescription for Amoxicillin.
Mia and Stef showed up at the end of the swim night and everything seemed fine. The next day, Mia was even able to go to the park for dinner and (at least the first part of) a movie. Over the next few days, we monitored her fever and administered Tylenol regularly to keep the fever from getting too high. It would fluctuate between 100 and 104 degrees. One night, the fever even went away completely, and I thought she was almost better.
Unfortunately, the fever came back. She broke out in a rash and started having headaches and other body aches. When things started getting worse on Saturday evening, I decided that we had waited long enough for her to get better and took her to the E.R. again.
They did a few tests, including blood work, and EKG, and some X-rays--but nothing seemed to indicate clearly what the problem was. The nurse told me that Mia's fever was the highest she'd ever seen in 2 years at the hospital. The doctors bounced ideas off each other, but nobody seemed to have a clue what was going on. Eventually, they recommended we take her to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake.
So, at about 12:30 AM, I took Mia to the car and started off for Salt Lake, prayerful that I would stay awake on the drive. To that end, I listened to kids' songs by They Might Be Giants, singing the whole way.
We got to the new hospital at about 1:30 AM. I brought Mia in and laid her down on a chair while I took care of paperwork. After a few minutes, they took us back to a room in the ER and we waited for a doctor. The E.R. doctor showed up, and we proceeded to answer the standard questions for a third or fourth time.
The doctor mentioned a few of the conditions that she and the other doctors were suspecting, including Scarlet Fever, Mono, Meningitis, Rheumatic Fever, and Kawasaki Disease.
If you're familiar with Mia's medical history, you'll remember that Mia had Kawasaki Disease when she was about 7 months old and we were living in Japan. It was a very scary situation in which she didn't respond well to the initial treatment. Kawasaki attacks the coronary arteries and can be life-threatening. We were not excited about a possible return of KD.
The doctor then told me that Mia would need to be admitted to the hospital.
(TO BE COMPLETED SOME TIME IN THE FUTURE)
