What the heck is that?!?

So last Thursday my daughter gets off the school bus looking like she either ran around the school building half a dozen times or someone slapped her in the cheeks half a dozen times.  I asked...."Jocelyn" what happened to you? She replied... "mommy" I was just laughing A LOT! Funny the things kids say.  So off to Gymnastics we went.  Upon getting to the gym I noticed that the redness in her cheeks only got a little worse, and since we were already at the gym I decided to let her workout while watching her closely.  She had a great workout.  Mommy is very proud of her, but that night right before bedtime is when her body looked like it had been worked over by this mysterious rash. 

It was so bad, we decided to take her up to the hospital because she was so itchy, hot and very uncomfortable.  A total of 4 hours in the hospital with no answers is probably the most discouraging news any parent can endure.  So we waited and cared for her hoping this thing would pass in a few days, but to no avail it got worse.  5 days have passed and my daughter looked like she had a bad case of the measles.  Seriously?!? I was so frustrated, I decided to take her to her regular primary doctor on Tuesday and I am SO glad I did.  The doc came into our room and he instantly knew what was going on with her.  Parvo B-19! What? What is that I said?!? Parvo B-19 is what you call 5th's disease! Well, if your a Mom.... you probably have not heard of that before.  I was shocked! Why in the world did the hospital NOT know that? I was beyond irritated.

So in a nut shell, because of her severity she could have this rash for as long as forever  8 weeks, but thankfully she's not contagious.  She just looks a little freakish is all.  The scariest thing of all was that she was the most contagious when she wasn't sick! We would have had NO way of knowing of coarse, but I still feel horrible for all of the kids that were exposed.  I wish I would have had a clue so I could have isolated her.  Welcome to the new 2010 school year!  Another reason I want to home school! So the waiting begins for my oldest to come down with this "slapped cheek" syndrome.  Waiting is sometimes the worst thing of all, knowing your kid may get sick and there's nothing you can do about it to stop it.  Life just isn't fair sometimes.  But I have to be thankful that I have very healthy kids otherwise.  Until next time....