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pale, he wanted to be carried around and did not want to walk, his feet were getting swollen, and the spots were now getting bigger and going all up and down his legs. From that point, his pediatrician directed us to head on up to Lexington and get checked in at the UK HealthCare emergency room. They didn’ t want to let this go on any longer without it getting thoroughly checked out.
I was working at the newspaper office and met up with Carmen and Jaxson as fast as I could, and we all hit the road.
After checking his vitals, they went ahead and got Jaxson into his own room in the ER.
They got him hooked up to an IV because they wanted to be sure he was hydrated and figured they would be giving him some medicine throughout the night anyway. They also wanted to draw his blood for lab work, and
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wanted a urine sample to check out his kidneys.
After about 6-7 hours of doing tests and monitoring, they confirmed it was HSP but thankfully his kidneys were looking fine. They still wanted to go ahead and admit him to the hospital for at least an overnight stay so they could keep a close eye on his progress.
The next morning, a team of doctors came by to visit Jaxson and reiterated that he had HSP and explained what all that meant.
They said it normally heals itself in a few weeks, but you have to continue to monitor the kidneys for the next several months.
They also gave us a little list of goals that Jaxson needed to accomplish in order for him to be discharged that afternoon.
They wanted to see him eating and drinking well, and asked us to keep track of whatever he consumed.
They also wanted to take
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the IV out and see how his pain was without the IV medication.
And lastly, they wanted to see him get on his feet and walk around some before they let us go.
As to be expected, the long night and long day had left Jaxson cranky so it wasn’ t the easiest experience getting him to do those things. But he ate a decent amount of food, eventually walked around on his own, and seemed to feel better overall.
By around 5:30 p. m. that evening, we got checked out of the hospital, grabbed some comfort food at Chick-Fil-A, and were on our way back home.
At the time I’ m writing this, it’ s been a little over two weeks since that hospital visit.
Jaxson has been feeling much better, the red spots are pretty much all gone, and he has been walking like normal again.
Per the doctor’ s orders,
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we’ ve been giving him Children’ s Motrin a few times a day. And we’ re visiting Jaxson’ s pediatrician every week to keep an eye on his kidneys.
If you have any questions about HSP, feel free to give me a holler at bhall @ thetimestribune. com. I don’ t know every single thing about it but I wouldn’ t mind at all to further discuss our experiences with it.
My wife and I are very thankful for the support we’ ve been given over the past month and are certainly appreciative of the prayers. It absolutely felt like God stepped in to help Jaxson recover so quickly.
It has definitely been a process, though, and I know it’ s been tough on Jaxson with all the doctor visits and missing days of school. But he has been taking it all in stride and hopefully we’ ll be in the clear completely before long.
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