Confirmed

I took Caleb (and Isaac) to the dermatologist on Monday and she told me that she was certain it was shingles. She took a cultures of the blisters anyway, just to make sure. I really liked this new doctor. Most of C's doctors will "cover" and make excuses for each other if a mistake is made. She was completely honest and told me these blisters NEVER looked like a fungal infection (I brought pictures of course!) Sometimes I think they need to "forget" that he has an immune deficiency and look at him as a "normal" child. They always jump to blame it on his immune deficiency when 99% of the time they are overlooking the obvious. Another example is I had her look at the rash on his leg that we've been treating as fungal infection. Of course it's NOT fungal. It is the result of a virus he must have had last month. It's called lichen striatus for those of you who want to know:) Something I had to look up and I couldn't find a lot about it. Nothing like treating him for the wrong thing for 2 weeks! She said it might take 6 months to a year for it to go away and there's nothing to treat it, but it's not harmful/contagious. Lovely...

Anyway, the cultures of his blisters finally came back today and he has the varicella zoster virus (chicken pox/shingles). The puzzling thing is the blisters continue to spread in his hair, despite being on an antiviral medication for 4.5 days. Leave it to Caleb to always follow the unbeaten path. It was discussed today to admit him to the hospital for 7-10 days of IV antiviral medication. But since he's still acting fine and eating okay we're just going to wait it out at this point. That will change if he gets a fever, or if he starts "acting" sick. He is baffling everyone with the fact that he doesn't complain of pain, although he does wince when I put a shirt over his head. For the most part, he's leaving the blisters/scabs alone. He's a very slow healer, so I am sure he'll have these scabs for a long time. He's a trooper though and this is just another example of how resilient he is.


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This little man has become quite the character lately. I ask myself daily if he's really only 2 years old. He surely doesn't think so as he tells everyone who asks him how old he is that he's 6! As we were eating supper last night, he told me "Mom, dith ith ter-da-bull" (this is terrible).

And when I was trying to get him to say his prayers tonight, he told me "I can't." When I asked him why he couldn't say his prayers, he replied "Dats dangerous. I not say my pears. Dats dangerous." Nice, huh?!