It's baaack!

I haven't had a lot of time to blog lately.

So over the weekend, Nathan developed a little rash on his face and then by Monday, I noticed a few of the spots were looking more and more like tiny pimples. Tuesday night at bath time, I saw a pimple on his middle finger. Oh great, another staph infection. That makes 4 in 3 months for him. By Wednesday morning, the pimple on his finger had swelled up a lot so I made an appt to take him to the pediatrician that morning. Sure enough, the Dr. thinks it's MRSA, or from the Mayo Clinic's website- "methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain of staph that's resistant to the broad-spectrum antibiotics commonly used to treat it" so Nathan is going to stay on an antibiotic indefinitely until we can see a specialist. *sigh* Our doctor's office is working on getting us an appt with either Children's Hospital in L.A. or UCLA within the next month if possible. Our Dr. has no idea what to do and how to prevent this. It's all educated guesses at this point so we're being sent to an Infectious Disease Specialist of some sort. We're the "special" family that keeps getting MRSA. Our Dr. has seen a lot of kids with MRSA, but none that have gotten it as frequently as Nathan.

The frustrating part is that because MRSA is still relatively new, there isn't a lot of knowledge about it. I asked the Dr. how long the incubation period is, from first contact to exhibiting symptoms, and he just doesn't know. Our whole family of four has been tested to see if any of us are carriers for this and all of the tests have come back negative.

I worry about the long-term effects of Nathan being on antibiotics so often. I feel like we're going to end up being a case study for researchers, guinea pigs in some way. I know that most likely it won't really come down to that, but it's a little scary that we're in uncharted waters, at least for our pediatrician, and no one really knows how this MRSA thing is going to go down.

Our insurance company only allows 12 doctor visits per person per year, at least, visits that we can pay with our $25 copay. If we exceed that, and Nathan is on visit 10 or 11 now, we won't be able to just make a copay but instead are responsible for 45% of the bill. It's not even June. Ugh.

Thankfully Raymond is already planning on taking the day off to go with us whenever it is we have to go to L.A. My in-laws are ready to help out in any way we need as well.

I'm just frustrated and a little worried and scared. It's especially upsetting because even the Dr. doesn't know what to do. He's not sure if Nathan is not truly getting over each infection and it's hiding in his body somewhere or if his eczema (damaged skin as his Dr. keeps calling it) is just making it really easy for him to get it over and over again.

I am extremely grateful that this is not super serious. Nathan doesn't have cancer, this isn't life threatening for him and it's not really affecting him. He's still the happy, mischeivous little boy we love.

Lord, if it be Your will, help us get to the bottom of this. Keep Nathan in Your hands.

Some pictures of his latest infection.