If you ever see a kid with red eyes and a white halo around his pupil, get him to the hospital.  Kawasaki disease was brought up to our doctors, by our doctors, by you all a few times but ALL the symptoms didn’t appear until I was out of town, giving the infectious disease folks at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital a perfect textbook picture of the disease.  Because of that interns, residents, fellows and doctors have been coming into Gresham’s room at all hours to get a glimpse of what every symptom of Kawasaki disease looks look.  So the poor kid was having a hard time getting through a nap, a T.V. show, or a game of crazy eights.  Until this morning.

This morning he woke up, the last drops anti-bodies from that hanging bag packed into his body, with no more red eyes, no more rash or swollen joints or fever.  He’s absolutely perfectly well.  No longer a living exhibit.

The doctor just wants to watch him until tomorrow (Sunday) morning because in rare cases this disease comes back shortly after all signs of it are gone.  More than likely we’ll be home sometime tomorrow and Gresham will have to share Mom and Dad with everyone else again.

The only lingering affect of all this could be on his heart.  He’ll be taking massive amounts of Aspirin every day and getting his heart check in a few weeks.  Besides that, we’re golden.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the prayers.  Becky and Gresham and I appreciate every word.  I told Gresham at some point that there were hundreds of people praying for him.  “This that more than this many?” he asked and held up all his fingers. 

“Oh, yea, it’s a lot more than that,” I said. “It’s how many doctors you’ve talked to today.”

“Holy moley.”

I wish I could personally thank you all.  But, holy moley, that is a pretty big number.