Shingles

We have a talent in our family of contracting strange illnesses and diseases. Will is no exception. 

On Tuesday Stephen noticed a rash on Will's left leg while changing his diaper. We both looked at the rash, decided it was eczema, we put some eczema cream on it and went on our way. On Wednesday I noticed that the rash had spread to more parts of his leg and it was not getting better. I put some anti-itch cream and some of my impetigo medicine on it and hoped it would get better. On Thursday, the rash was even worse and Will was crying and just not acting like himself, so Stephen and I decided it was time to visit the doctor.

Four different doctors came in to see his rash and decide what it was. It was decided that the rash was shingles, apparently shingles generally travels along only one nerve line and Will had it across 3 so it was tricky to diagnose. 

We left the doctor's office with some anti-viral medicine and the instructions to keep Will inside away from other because shingles is super contagious until it scabs over. 

Since then we've hung out in jammies for the last few days, watched Cars 15 times, Thomas and Friends 10 times, and Will has knocked on the front door and said "play outside, fun!" 12 times, but who's counting. He's actually been a trooper through it all. He does come up to me, pat his leg and say, "ouch-y, leg, ouch-y." It breaks my heart a little.

His shingles are scabbing over so we might hazard a trip out to the grocery store today, as long as Will wears pants and keeps away from other kids.

 As always, Will is cool as a cucumber through most painful things. I love this little boy!

P.S. The doctor said that in rare cases the chicken pox vaccine can cause shingles in children. Also that when they get shingles once, they'll get it on and off for the rest of their lives, kind of like cold sores, it hides out in your spinal cord. I think I'd rather have the rest of my kids get chicken pox instead on the vaccine because we've proven that in our family, we are rare cases.