kawasaki diseaseThe next morning, Leo was worse. The family doctor concluded it was scarlet fever (a fancy name for strep with a rash), also pending the results of the throat culture. Deborah posted another photo on Facebook with the following less cheeky caption: “Baby getting sicker. Eyes swollen shut. Fever rising. Penicillin not working. Might be scarlet fever. Or roseola. Or…???? Sigh.” Within three hours, 20 concerned comments had appeared underneath the photo. The next morning, Leo’s face was swollen beyond recognition. Deborah took a dozen photos of Leo from various angles to send to the family doctor via MMS, and posted the least frightening ones on Facebook. “Swelling worse,” she wrote, “especially eyes and chin. Fever still crazy high. Poor baby.
Ten minutes later, Deborah received a call from her Facebook friend Stephanie, a film actress and former neighbor. “I hope you’ll excuse me for butting in but you have to get to the hospital,” she said. “Now. The longer you wait, the worse the damage.” Her son Max had had the exact same symptoms, and was hospitalized for Kawasaki disease. Deborah looked it up online and found it was a rare and sometimes fatal auto-immune disorder that attacks the coronary arteries surrounding the heart. Many of Leo’s symptoms seemed to match the descriptions, though there were also similar ones to the flu and scarlet fever. Then Leo’s strep test came back negative. The most recent Facebook photo had garnered 36 comments, with various diagnoses and words of support, and Deborah’s inbox had multiple private messages. One was from her friend Beth, a pediatrician, and it echoed Stephanie’s fears. Deborah’s cousin Emily, a pediatric cardiologist who often has to deal with the fallout from untreated Kawasaki, also called after seeing the photo, urging her to go to the hospital. “The damage begins as early as five days after the onset of symptoms,” she said.
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