I had a phone call from Mother in Australia this morning. My youngest sister’s eldest son (he’s 10) is in hospital, diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease (which has nothing to do with motorbikes!).
He started to get ill on Saturday and progressed from sore throat to swollen glands in his neck to fever to rash and cracked/dry lips despite not being dehydrated (he’s not eaten anything for several days but has been drinking plenty) with the GP seeing him every day and then him being rushed to hospital this morning. The specialist has said that today was the earliest they could have diagnosed it because they would have to have that whole progression to map the symptoms to this and not to some virus/infection. He’s booked in for an echo (I assume echocardiogram – Mum just said “echo”) at the children’s hospital in the morning (it’s early evening there now). Sister’s other half has been called home, he works in the mines, his employer arranged him a flight out straight away. Sis is staying at the hospital, Mum and Dad have got her younger son with them for now.
Poor kid. Looks like he’s going to have to be monitored for heart problems for the rest of his life once he recovers from the initial illness. At least the prognosis is good when it is diagnosed early and the treatment started straight away.
ETA: spoke to sister on the phone this evening, he’s being given the gammaglobulin i-v (8 and a half bottles at $2000/bottle… thank goodness he’s under 16 and they live in Australia so they don’t have to find the cash for it). She’s bribing him to take his aspirin tablets, apparently. He’s spending his time making lists of what he will buy with the money when he goes home! He’ll be in hospital for a week at least.
