Hospital stay

Hey! Things have been pretty hectic for the past 2-3 weeks, and for most parts, it feels like I’m grasping at straws.

Mid-September, my son complained tummy/abdominal pain. At first, we thought it’s a really mild gastric acid. However, it went really bad and we had to bring him to ER.

The ER doctor, fortunately, noticed red rashes on my son’s legs. He mentioned that the rashes AND the abdominal pain might be related, so he suggested us to ring up our son’s paediatrician first thing first in the morning.

Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP.) Goodness. That name itself is quite a tongue-twister.

With my son, though, it was a severe case. The paediatrician commented that HSP is a rare case and we don’t really know what triggered it.

So it was an… interesting 1-week hospital stay.

There were some nerve-wracking moments when we monitored my son’s progress in the hospital. The recovery went, and still going, excruciatingly slow. With mild cases, it can take 2-4 weeks. Who knows how long it would be with a severe case like my son’s.

“Recovery is still a recovery,” the doctor encouraged all of us. There’s only so much a medicine can handle, and I personally prefer to reduce the medicine dosage — especially the painkillers — and I’m glad the doctor is on board with me.

I really can’t tell much about this disease, Henloch-Schonlein Purpura, other than this is one of autoimmune diseases — so the trigger could be anything. When your body got sick, the immune system on the body reacts. However, the sudden spike of immune system caused this unexpected effect. Blood vein inflammation, abdominal pain, and sometimes vomiting. The only way to avoid that? Not to get sick.

Currently, I feel that we have passed the worst point. The problem we have now is gastric acid and colic. That, and some joint problems and muscle cramps.

Here’s for a better tomorrow.