My poor, poor little man

So, seriously.  It's like my kids can't just get a little sick.  Last fall, both boys got e.coli, and were out of daycare for 38 days.  Yes, I counted.  Every day.

Saturday we took the boys to the Kalahari, and that evening, Dawson was suddenly covered in hives.  I had him take some benadryl, but he woke up in the middle of the night crying because he itched so bad.  By the next morning, they had spread and were all over.  He was in great spirits (as evidenced by this photo, where he danced as I tried to take pictures of him), but was still crazy itchy.  I spoke w/ the nurse at urgent care, and after running through the symptoms, she said it's all sounding like a reaction to a virus, but to keep an eye on it.

Sunday night he spent the night with my in-laws, and Monday morning they called to say that his torso looked better, but his face was swollen.  I again called the nurses office and ran through the symptoms, and answered some questions (no joint pain, no purple rash).  She again said virus and to keep an eye on it.

Last night around 6:30 I got the boys in to the tub, and David washed Dawson and got him into his pajamas.  Neither of us noticed anything out of the ordinary.  Around 7:30, Dawson asked me to carry him to bed because his legs hurt, so I did, and he was asleep before 8.

A little before 9, he suddenly woke up, twitching, screaming, and sobbing that his legs hurt.  He wouldn't let us touch him, and he was so hard to calm down.  I called urgent care again, and while we waited for them to call back, we tried to coax some ibuprofen into Dawson.  He finally took it, and then we tried to coax him into showing us his legs.  We finally just grabbed him and pulled his pants down - and his legs were awful.  His thighs were giant purple bruises - just covered.  I ended up immediately getting dressed and driving him to the ER.

By the time we got there, the ibuprofen had helped and he was able to walk some.  The PA took a look at him and was able to throw something out right away - Henoch-Schonlein purpura.  Basically, his immune system reacting all wrong to a virus.  He got some fluids, had some blood work done, and was able to go home.  They had to check with the Children's Hospital first, because this can cause kidney issues, and D refused to give a urine sample.  Luckily, the blood work showed no kidney issues, so they said that as long as I bring a sample to our pedi today, we should be good.

So, here we are at home, 9:30 the next morning.  He's exhausted and not eating, but he's drank almost a full glass of water.  I tried to get him to go potty, but he still refuses to go, and he hasn't gone since we got home around 1:30am.  I'm still pumping him full of benadryl and ibuprofen, and we see his primary doc this afternoon. 

The crazy part is that this can apparently take WEEKS to go away.  Seriously, weeks?  I don't know if it means weeks as in, no daycare for weeks, or just that he may have bruising, etc for weeks.  As he is now, he definitely won't be going to daycare for a few days...maybe the rest of the week?  My poor guy.