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An update on our progress:

Thursday, AJ woke up and was able to walk normally and wasn't complaining of any pain. We took him to school as normal. When we went back to pick him up, his teacher informed us that after naptime, he started hurting and couldn't sit normally in his chair. She propped him up and got him as comfortable as possible. By the time we got there to pick him up, he couldn't walk and his knee was swelling again. The red spots have spread over more of his legs and elbows.

Only problem? It was the other knee. The swelling and excrutiating pain has now traveled to the other leg.

We took him home and gave him a dose of Tylenol with codeine to try to help ease the pain. By 6:30pm, we decided that we needed some answers. At the very least some strong IV antibiotics. So we loaded everyone in the car and headed to Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital in the Medical Center. By the time we got to the Emergency Room, AJ could not be moved without much screaming and his left hand was also starting to swell.

At about 10:00pm, a resident came into the exam room to look at AJ. He decided pretty quickly that it is not an infection. He said he needed to check a theory and would come back after discussing with the attending physician.

They returned around half an hour later with a diagnosis. AJ apparently has Henoch-Schoenlein Purpura (HSP for short). HSP is an inflammation of the small blood vessels. The vessel begin to leak, thus forming the pitichiae and red spots. It also causes fluid to build up painfully in the joints and causes swelling. They don't know what causes it, but they know that there is no cure for it. The only thing to do is to manage the pain and try to make him as comfortable as possible. It will eventually work itself out and will go away in anywhere from a few days to as long as 8 weeks.

So here we sit, giving him Motrin to try to reduce the inflammation and pain. And we wait...

We got home from the hospital at 12:30am. AJ woke up an hour later screaming in agony. Codeine does nothing to help him. He can't stand for anyone to touch him, so all we can do is watch and listen to him cry.

I haven't felt this helpless since we finally got to bring him home from the NICU...